"You're
definitely headed that direction."
Where
to, you might ask? Definitely not down the yellow brick road with Toto in my
basket. This time, the [wo]man (or Dr. if we're being nit picky) behind the
curtain was referencing my vision. More specifically, the lack thereof and the
problems associated with it.
A
person kinda knows when there's something just not right inside their body. So
when I scheduled my yearly eye exam, I had a feeling that at least a miniature
C4 explosion would be dropped into my lap. And it really depends on who ya ask
but in the grand scheme of things, this isn't exactly an atomic bomb. But what
really is nowadays anyway?
So while I wish my Dr. was telling me that I was headed toward a
tub of ice cream or improved coordination while completing daily tasks or even
a social filter that's less Sheldon Cooper and more First Lady, she wasn't. My
handy dandy pamphlet that Dr. Baker sent me home with defines Glaucoma as,
"an eye disorder that causes progressive damage to the optic nerve and
loss of nerve tissue resulting in loss of vision, especially peripheral
vision." Well, LA TEE DA! My first thought was that I'm 25. Thought #2: I
have no family history of Glaucoma. #3: I'm literally the healthiest person in
this building right now, how could this be possible. #4: you gotta be able to
see to practice medicine. If I let myself think about #4 for too long, that’s
about the only time I become visibly upset. Otherwise, I find myself very okay
with it all.
I think that the human body is a magnificent and fascinating
thing. Here I am, a 25-year-old Caucasian that was just told she’s in the early
stages of Glaucoma, a disease that statistically affects African Americans over
40 and Hispanics over 60. Yay for always going against the grain! Now before I
continue and your little hearts go pitter-patter with too much sympathy, the
odds of me going blind in this lifetime are slim, I’m pretty sure. Glaucoma is
a slow progressing disease, treatments exist and we caught it early. The odds
of me losing portions of my field of vision; unknown. The pressure in my eyes
has always been high and it has fluctuated greatly over the course of my patient
history with this doctor. However, my optic nerve has thinned at a concerning
rate over the years but, we just don’t know what exactly will happen. Many
people get diagnosed with Glaucoma at a young age and never see a change in
their vision. But loss of vision and blindness can occur. My Dr. is
particularly aware of my case because I have zero indicators of the disease.
Why I’m “headed in that direction,” again, we don’t know. Which brings me back
to why I think the human body is so fascinating.
The only thing constant in life is change, right? It is so with
our bodies as well. Your taste buds change every 7 years, cancer survivors
often regrow hair of different texture, your hypothalamus is constantly
secreting hormones to keep the body in a homeostatic state and for a handful of
reasons, the pressure in my eyes may increase and my optic nerve may thin so
much that my vision may or may not be altered. But when I sit back and think
about it, I can’t help but acknowledge how absolutely cool it is that a mostly
perfectly healthy body, with zero hereditary indicators, can still change like
that. It’s a wondrous thing to know that we are not in control. This doesn’t
mean that I am being captured by a possible change in my sight. There is no
hindrance. Instead, I get to shift as my body does and for that I am grateful.
I have been allowed to live a certain way and obtain a certain awareness of
life over the passed 25 years and now, I get to do new things. Whether physical
changes occur or not, whether I never lose a single speck of vision or I lose
it all, I get to experience and respond to things in new ways because what has
changed is my mentality, my light, my spirit. The things that make me, me.
Again, this shift is something that was out of my control. One doesn’t really
realize that it’s even happening. The course of my life may or may not change
according to my eyeballs and I find it an incredibly fascinating thing to have
the privilege to learn how to navigate such a shift.
So I guess the reason I’m sharing all of this long-winded stuff
with you and the real question is, what do you do when you get rocked with
something in life? What do you do when you’re suddenly uncomfortable with what
you thought was your normal? Or when
you’re not really that happy with
something you were once happy with and change has come yodeling its little
heart out? Do you go down with a TKO and await your demise in the corner of the
ring thinking that it’s just a phase and you just gotta shake it off before the
10 count? Do you keep on livin’ the same way? Life is LITERALLY a constant
state of entropy and yet, we are all called to great things. You are not meant
to spend even one millisecond on this earth being in a state of internal
distress. No matter if it’s a firework or a nuke. So when life shifts, don’t
waste time avoiding the change and instead, choose to shift with it. Be the
Cowardly Lion, surround yourself with preferably a less frivolous bunch than
Dorothy, Tin Man, and Scarecrow (but keep the ruby slippers) and head that direction. Whether you can see
or not.
