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Friday, January 24, 2014

Good looking!

My brother saw me for the first time in thirty-seven years.

You know how they say, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye"? Well, they're talking about my brother. He's that guy. The guy whose eye got poked out.

He was ten and his eye didn't exactly get poked out but it did get poked and he became legally blind in that eye as a result. He had three surgeries that year none of which could save his vision but which did save his eye.

The technology didn't exist four decades ago to repair his vision so he went through the remainder of his childhood, adolescence, and into middle age without the advantage of depth perception or even peripheral vision on his left side.

A baseball career was definitely out of the question.

But things changed. Surgical technologies advanced and he got a job with good healthcare coverage. It took thirty-seven years but he was finally in a position to get his vision back.

It turns out the surgeons did more than save his eye all those years ago. When they removed the lens in his left eye, they did so in such a way that left his eye in the best shape possible to receive a new lens nearly four decades later without much restorative work. The surgery went better than expected and he could see - for the first time in thirty-seven years - the very next day.

The last time he saw me in 3D, I was 13. It's pretty cool to finally be seen by my little brother. Really, really cool.

"It's nice to see you," has been the understatement of the day.

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