Eight weeks and two days. Seven weeks post-surgery.

* I’ve resigned myself to going back in for a second repair and a third surgery late in March. I just have. Mr. Google isn’t always your friend when you’re hurt, but I don’t need Mr. Google to tell me that the retina is supposed to be attached to the side of the eye and bad things happen if it isn’t.

And that’s before I get the weird flashes of light that are my own private showing of the Northern Lights.

* I ordered a new Road ID just now, before I wrote this post. The kids and I were looking through the list of slogans — the boy, of course, loved the Latin and thought I needed the slogan that said, “Always where under where” — and I suggested mine should be I don’t need no stinkin’ eye protection.

They dared me to do it.

So, of course, I didn’t.

* The gas bubble is STILL in my eye. This is one stubborn sucker! When I’m in a good mood, it’s my little buddy. When I’m in a bad mood, well… there are a lot of people out there who don’t know how thoroughly and creatively I can swear, grumble, and whine. These people are lucky.

The bubble does distort my vision.

* I was out doing something today and realized that yep, because of the new tear, I’ve lost a tiny bit of peripheral vision. Just enough that I’d been wondering, looking funny at things, trying to figure it out. But when I was doing something familiar and noticed the absence was when I could admit it to myself.

I’m not as unscathed by this thing as I’d thought.

And that’s good and bad. I mean, there should be something more than one eye with 20/20 vision and a lot of memories to remind me of what happened. Something that reminds me of what I’ve been through, what I’ve survived. Hopefully, I won’t need bigger reminders, or more of them. Because let’s face it: no one wants to lose their vision. Even tiny bits of it.

But I have.

* I’m in the first major funk since the accident. It’s the new detachment, the scar tissue. Because if I scarred after one surgery, what’ll happen after the second? How much worse will it get? How much vision will I lose with each subsequent scar tissue growth, detachment, and repair?

This keeps me up at night. This is not the way I like to be kept up at night.

The vigil for a retinal tear from the detachment continues… keep the prayers coming.

This blog will be 10 in April, and for almost all of those ten years, it’s been the blog of a writer and editor. If you’ve gotten used to the sage writing and editorial words of wisdom I’ve been doling out of late and you can’t figure out how the recording of my recovery from a very serious eye injury ties into writing, well… maybe you’re not ready for Writing Wisdom According to Susan.

I’m writing this on Friday. It’s funny because I’ve been able to tolerate the light emanating from my phone – in small doses — but the laptop has been harder. And the desktop is still the most uncomfortable. This is because I can’t see the buttons to turn down the brightness. Naturally, now that 24-7 help has gone (for the time being), I remember to try. But the desktop is in its own room and despite the pleas of Lucy Cat, who misses going to work with me, I haven’t been in there much.

Anyway, I have a million thoughts and a million stories to tell. This is good.

Let’s flash back to last Monday, my first morning out of the hospital. I had to get up and get the kids off to school and maybe it was when my daughter was eating, and maybe it was after she’d left. Time… I’ve been very time challenged through this. (I asked in the first ER if I could possibly have a concussion and they shrugged and kept doing what they were doing. You know it’s bad when no one cares about your brain.)

So. Monday morning. I decided that I needed to eat something because, as I said to my Scouting buddy Will, “I ate more at Order of the Arrow ordeal than I have up to now.” If you don’t get the joke, ask an OA member.

And dude! I could make TOAST. I was feeling very proud of myself, ready to crow, “Hey, I can COOK!” when I blinked and …

This is it.

This is the moment in which I realized I missed my calling.

Guys, I should have gone into rocket science. I really should have been a rocket scientist.

Because I paused and looked at my toast and realized I couldn’t see it very clearly. “WHAT is up with that?” I asked myself, possibly out loud but who knows. “It’s my right eye that’s messed up. I should be able to see out of the left.”

Shoulda been a rocket scientist. I’m telling you this right here, right now.

I squinted. I tried to widen my eye (not as easy as you’d think when the other one is swollen shut). “What the HECK?”

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is sorry they never got their hooks in me.

Because no matter what, if you are nearsighted and you don’t have ANY sort of correction happening, YOU CANNOT SEE WELL.

Yeah… that explained a lot.

So I went upstairs and put in my left contact and all of a sudden, things were clear. It was a miracle!

Cripes.

As Vonnegut said so famously, “And so it goes.”

More later…

I took a few hours just now when I should have been writing, and re-added all the book reviews that used to be linked to from the Rock Fiction page.

And the recovery from being hacked continues…

If you haven’t been over to the Rock Fiction page yet, what’s keeping you? Go check it out. Read the reviews. If you know of any good reviews I can link to, let me know. If I’m missing any Rock Fiction titles that need to be on the page, let me know. Drop a note to your favorite Rock Fiction author (well, other than me) and ask them to send me their book for review (although I’m way backlogged!).

I’ve got a few more things to do behind the scenes, and then it’ll be off to some of that magic time that, on Twitter, we call #amwriting.