That Whole Eye Surgery Thing.

I seriously doubt there is anyone who was reading the comic back in 2006 that still is. I know that no one is going into the archive to read the Season 18 run of comics. In them is a series of comics of me poking fun of an eye surgery.

That all started when I was just a little boy. I was born with a defect in my eye that if I didn't get fixed I would have gone blind in that eye. Due to circumstances beyond my family's control, I was never able to get the follow ups I needed. It really wasn't much of an issue. I can't see what I call "artificial 3D." When you put those goggles on what I see is barf inducing semi-interlaced double images. That aside I was still able to get my driver's license and graduated high school (thank goodness for spell checks, guess which one in this sentence I got wrong on the first try.) My eye was not much of an issue. The state has me declared legally blind in that eye, but they have never given me any guff over it.

The Army on the other hand.

Since I couldn't pass the eye test with that eye I couldn't get licensed by my company. So each and every time went to a new unit I had to go to the ophthalmologist and get permission from the doctor to drive a Humvee. Every time I saw the doctor they would say they could fix that problem. I turned them down because I simply didn’t have the time and as a private I had no pull. They also didn’t explain to me what was going on.

Then one did. He told me that while the surgery I had as a kid wasn't new, no one had done any follow up surveys until years after my surgery. It had been found out that the charts used at the time were off by one millimeter. Using the new charts he could fix my eye and if that was successful I could have normal vision like everybody else. I decide to do it because I was now a sergeant and had some pull. Also I had decided not to re-enlist and go home anyway so get it done now. I could get it done before going to Afghanistan and it should heal up a short while later. I talked it over with my chain of command and in December of 2004 I went under the knife.

2005 turned into the year of hell for me and my eye was to blame for most of it. You see, double vision was supposed to be a good thing. Why? That meant my brain was still using my eye. After things healed up my eye would go into its proper position and thing would be good. That never happened. After six months things got bad. The double vision was making me nauseous and I was having dizzy spells whenever object at high speed moved from eye to eye. I tried toughing it out as much as possible but by the end of the year I was sent home from Afghanistan to get more surgery.

Little over a year after this whole thing started I had two more surgeries which put me back to where I was before this whole thing started, mostly. If I'm tired from a long day of work, sometimes the double vision will be there. A good nap takes care of that.

I think it was a valuable lesson learned. If it really doesn't need to be fixed, then don't.

I don't blame any one but myself for all the trouble I went through. I'm the one who said yes.