eye for I (and other eye related puns to follow!). the story of my cornea transplant. pretend you care!

Eye and I.
hazim and the new asymptotes
hey. hazim here...again. It's been almost three months since I've had a new cornea grafted onto my eye. It's called keratoplasty or a keratograft or a cornea transplant. I call it a second chance. I get nervous everyday that my body will reject the foreign tissue and I'll be forced to learn the piano in hopes of becoming the next Stevie Wonder. But I don't even know where the C note would be, let alone the W note (I know there's no such thing, but I didn't know that before!). Anyways, in December, I discovered I had keratoconnus, a disease (what a horrible ugly word) that causes your cornea to elongate into abonormal shapes, and morph (what a cool word) into a mountain peak. So glasses wouldn't help. You wouldnt believe how many times people told me I needed glasses. I'm not sure why this wasn't detected earlier, but whatever. My friend, Sharon, has the same disease, but hers is not so bad. She can wear contact lens to fix it. Hers is a hill, and mine are mountains. And no, I'm not talking about breast size. I'm talking about the peak of the cornea.

So, this disease, right? I had trouble seeing things properly. I could see. But it was blurry and the lights. Well, the lights throbbed in time with my heartbeat (ooh look at that stationary lamp Mom! It's moving!) and instead of seeing one point where the light comes from, it ends up scattered. Sucks. Depth perception sucks. Failed my driver's ed three times because of it. Ran into a lamp post at 10 pm at night because of it.

Anyways, I didn't have to wait long on the waiting list for a new cornea to arrive from the US of A. It came and I went for the surgery. it was uncomfortable lying there practically naked, my poor bare ass on an extremely cold steel table (which the nurses who didn't seem to like me probably imported from Antarctica especially for me), and me shivering like I swallowed a vibrator. But the surgery took just an hour and I was allowed to go home after a night in their even colder room.

So now, I'm allowed to go jogging and cycling. Two things I love. But I still can't go swimming. It should take one year for the eye to fully recover. Meanwhile I usually keep my right (your left) eye closed. It itches a lot sometimes. gets painful. But I have my medicine for that. There are risks of rejection to the new tissue, but I'm crossing my fingers. I'm going for riboflavin cross-linking treatment for the other eye cus it's not as severe. I might sign up for the organ donor thing so when I pass away (like die, like really really friggin die!) someone else can have my organs. Nobody wants my penis though, right?

I'm thankful. Sometimes I get pissed off. Like, why can't I have vision like other people? Why can't I see and they can? But then I coold down and count my blessings. I'm not blind...yet. I've still got a chance for good vision while my eye is recovering and I'm waiting to go for treatment for the other eye. While the doctor (whom is an opthamologist and loves Ironman by the way) says I won't reach 20/20 version. I'll be really thankful when I can actually see 4 feet in front of me. And if it fails? I'll get another transplant (Don't you just looove insurance coverage?). Meanwhile, I might take up piano lessons...kidding. I'm gonna play the steel drum. Haha. Hazim. Out.

For more information on keratoconnus, click here:http://www.supervisioncenter.com/keratoconus.htm
For more information on how you can help the cause, click here: http://www.supervisioncenter.com/keratoconus.htm
For more information on organ and tissue donations, click here: http://www.restoresight.org/general/faqs.htm
For more information on Stevie Wonder, click above where it says Stevie Wonder! Sure, its just a Wikipedia article but there's a percentage of credibility in there somewhere, right?