The Return of the Retina--the detached one that is

That's right. I'm having surgery again, so the blog may be a little quiet this week. I have much to post, hwoever, so I'll be saving it up and posting it when I'm able. If you are interested in the details, below you'll find the contents of an e-mail I sent out to friends and family today.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

Dear Friends and Family,

I found out today that I will be having a second eyesurgery to correct the same problem--a detached retina. I found out last week that this was a possibility but had hoped things would self-correct--no such luck.Tomorrow morning around 10 AM Central Time I will begoing under the knife again. That's the bad news.

The good news is that this is a different procedure than what they did six weeks ago. Then they putsomething called a "buckle" around the outside of my eyeball--painful as heck. The buckle still remains and will do so indefinitely, so there's no need to do that again. In the first surgery, they also put a bubble of gas inside my eye to push the retina back up against the wall of the eye--sort of like putting up wallpaper I guess. That held out for a while but as of last week stopped working. The really difficult part about that procedure, besides the pain, was thatI had to lay face down for 11 days so the little bubble could float up to the top and do its job. I will not have to do any of that this time.

This time around they are inserting a bubble of some kind of oil that apparently needs no positioning. So, I will spend no time on my face or laying in any other position, besides sleeping off the anesthesia. Also, I could be back at work in just a few days. I will still have to take it easy--no lifting--but I can do more than I could with the previous gas bubble. I can fly on an airplane for instance.

The downside to this procedure is that the bubble will remain for at least six months and it will have to be surgically removed. (The gas bubble just went away on its own.) this means that I will have at least six months of not having very good sight out of my righteye--the eye that normally has the better vision. No driving, trouble reading, weakened vision in general ,etc.

Thinking long term, I'm hopeful this procedure will work and that I will have my sight back to ther elative good condition I normally possess. There is, however, the chance that I will never have my vision back the way it was--no matter what they do--that possibility is thankfully remote, h owever.

Anyway, I'd appreciate prayers, warm thoughts, love energies, healing shakras, or whatever else you can offer. I'll send out another e-mail letting you know how it went when I'm able. For the moment, I'm optimistic things will go well and I'm really glad that I don't have to lay on my facef or two weeks or go through the pain I went through in January. My dad is staying with us for the next fewdays to get me where I need to go and to help with thekids. (Thank God for grandparents!)

Grace and Peace,

Chase