Love and First Sight(54)

“Any problems this week, Will?” asks Dr. Bianchi as a streak of bright white lab coat walks into the room.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I say, assuming he is inquiring about my eyesight, not my personal life. “But I’m still having a lot of trouble with depth perception. Does that mean one of my eyes isn’t working? Because don’t you need both eyes to see depth?”

“Ah, yes, the depth perception. Binocular cues—that’s what we call cues from using two eyes—do account for some of depth perception. But most of the cues are monocular, meaning they can be processed by a single eye.”

“What are the monocular cues?” I ask.

“When one object blocks the other, it tells us it is in front. When you know the actual size of the two objects, you can compare their distance by judging their relative size and knowing the smaller one is farther away. Also, color and brightness. There are many ways.”

“So I just have to keep waiting?” I say, frustrated.

“You must have patience, yes. But you must do more than simply wait. You should explore and see the new objects and places. Force your brain into unknown situations where it must comprehend the depth perception for you.”

I don’t know where I could find these unknown situations to put myself in. I mean, I’ve never even been outside Kansas. I’ve only left Toano for blind school and camp. My day-to-day life simply doesn’t present me with many new stimuli. I mean, sure, technically everything I see is a “new” sight. But I already have route maps of school, my house, and my neighborhood in my head. So when I look at them now, I’m just connecting the objects I see with points along the paths I memorized back when I was blind. It’s not actually new or unknown terrain.

“Let us now examine those eyes,” he says.

We go through the usual routine. But there’s one particular measurement involving a cold metal caliper pushed into the edges of my eyeballs that he performs a few more times than he usually does.

“Will, I am sorry to tell you this—I have some very bad news,” he says, stepping back from the examination table where I am sitting. “Have you been experiencing blurriness around the edges of your vision? Or any pain?”

“My eyes have been feeling kind of uncomfortable lately, yes,” I offer.

“As I feared.”

“But I kind of had, uhhh, a relationship problem and did a lot of crying.”

From his tone, I feel like it’s something serious, but I want to believe whatever problem he’s found is merely a side effect of the tears.

“I’m sorry to hear that. But no, crying is not the problem. You have a buildup of fluid in your optical cavity. Very much fluid since I saw you last week,” he explains.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Most likely, it means your body is rejecting the donor tissue.”

My heart skips a beat.

“That sounds bad.”

“Yes, I am afraid it is very bad.”

“What will happen?” I ask.

“If it continues, all the progress we made is lost,” he says, sympathy creeping into his voice.

It feels like he slapped me in the face.

“You mean I’ll go back to being blind?”

He pauses. “Yes, this is what I mean.”

I angle my head down toward the floor and run my fingers through my hair.

“When that—I mean, if that happens, couldn’t you just do another transplant?”

“Unfortunately, no. Such a transplant can be performed only once. The scar tissue from the operation makes further attempts impossible.”

“Well, then—I mean, there must be—is there something you can do? To stop the fluid buildup?”

“Yes, we’ll of course try our best to save your eyesight. The problem we have now is that your body identifies the new tissue in your eyes as foreign, so your own immune system tries to destroy it. This is the source of the fluid. I’m going to increase your dose of immunosuppressive drugs. But I must warn you, Will, this also puts you in danger. You must avoid contact with any person of illness, because with a compromised immune system, you are able to contract any contagious disease. You must avoid dirty or contaminated environments.

“You must not fly on airplanes, because the pressure in the airplane cabin could cause an optical rupture. No contact sports, no sudden movements. Your situation is very fragile; you must exercise great caution.”

“Got it,” I say, trying to sound more confident about my situation than I actually feel.

He sets a hand on my shoulder. “I’m very sorry about all this, Will. I always have the greatest hopes for you.”

“What are my chances?”

“Not the best,” he says, avoiding a direct answer.

“What would you say, though?” I ask. “Like a percentage?”

“That you retain the eyesight?” he says.

“Yeah,” I say.

“From what I have seen today, my guess is fifty percent.”





CHAPTER 28


In the car on the way home, Mom can tell there’s a problem.

“What’s wrong?” she asks as soon as I fasten my seat belt.

“Nothing,” I say dryly.

“Honey, did Dr. Bianchi say there was something wrong?” she asks worriedly.