I’ve told this story countless times. It’s a part of me and my life journey. I forget even now that it happened sometimes. I’ve walked in freedom from fear over it for maybe ten years. Before that was a completely different story. 29 years ago today actually this happened to me! That is crazy to say for me. What a journey. . .
I was eight years old in the summer of 1993. I was excited because my parents purchased a new squirt gun for each of us four children. That was a big deal to me as we didn’t have a lot of money. Super soakers were all the rage that summer and we finally got one today, July 1st to be exact. We got home and I went straight to the kitchen for scissors so I could cut open the package. What do I grab? Metal sewing scissors! These are old from the early 1900's and were owned previously by my great grandmother. They have a point at the end on the tip and not only were sharp but also heavy. For a child, they would have been awkward and not so easy to use. I took everything to my room immediately and began to try and open the box.
I remember exactly where I sat on the floor of my shared room with my sister. I looked up when my brother came to the door to tell me to stop. I didn't listen to him and he went back out. The binding on the box holding the squirt gun in was white and very thick. I put the scissors around that binding and pushed and cut with all my might. The box was on my lap and I was looking down at it. When the scissors finally went through the force of my right arm made them go up and the tip of the scissors sliced my left eye cornea in a horseshoe shape. Everything went blurry and I ran out to my parents. My mom took me to the ER in the small town over and they sent us to a bigger hospital 45 minutes away. I remember them distinctly saying most eyes heal on their own 99% of the time but you are the 1%. We had no idea just how much my life would change.
We got to the larger hospital and my mom was making jokes with me, we discussed what the doctor would look like. It was a good distraction. He was the kindest man ever in reality and talk with dark hair. His office wasn't far from the hospital either which was good for true time it took us to wait. I had five hours of repair surgery that night. I stayed in the hospital for five days. One of my most memorable July 4ths was the fireworks display from that hospital stay but I could only see with my right eye. The hospital is right next to the butte that they light fireworks off of in Bend, OR. We were lucky the nurse took us to the roof that night. She wheeled me into the elevator and off we went. It felt like I could reach out and touch those fireworks. It was magical in the midst of trauma.
My life went from being a normal kid running around and playing to immediate slowdown mode. No water/swimming, no running/jumping, no exercise, or anything physical was allowed. My eye was healing but the doctor noticed some imperfections and sent us to Casey Eye Institute in Portland that August. My doctor was fantastic there as well. He was so nice and friendly and I trusted him, thankfully. We saw the doctor in August and then he decided I needed a cornea transplant but I cannot remember the exact reasons why. This all went fairly quickly. In September of that same year just a month later, I had a corneal transplant. I didn't ask questions about where the cornea came from until I was sixteen. My mom shared it came from a 6-year-old boy who passed away in a car accident. I was shocked and so thankful. I wish I knew who that family was. I was so fortunate to get a match so quickly.
It was not an easy recovery from surgery. I wore a patch and a thick contact over my eye for a long time. My mother and I stayed with my aunt and uncle for a while as I healed. My aunt Julie is one of my favorite people. I saw her a lot growing up and will always remember her kindness to me as a child. She is the sweetest woman and an incredible person. I recovered and because the pressure on your eye is so great I wasn't allowed to move very quickly. Take your own 8 almost 9-year-old and tell them to be slow and stop moving and then tell me how they might feel?
I did not return to school until January. I had a tutor that came to the house for a few months. I had weekly or bi-weekly visits to the cornea specialist in Portland as well. God surely helped my parents get through this time. My father was ill from a rare disease, we lived in a home where so many things happened to us there, from a weird virus to extreme flu, to my dad being sick and my grandma having a brain tumor. It was not the best few years of our lives. We moved out to a farm in the next town over and that next spring I was mad and flung the ladder swing that hung down from a large tree. It was very very windy and the wind flung it back in my face and popped the cornea. I had repair surgery again and I remember choosing to be awake while they took the stitches out this next time. I literally watched my doctor remove the stitches. It was a crazy amazing experience but at the same time extremely painful. I remember crying and crying on the way home from the pain. It was like a needle had scraped my eyeball over and over when the numbing drops wore off and we had to wait another hour or so to put them in.
Corneas are the most successful transplant of all time and the one that has lived the longest as well. I rejected mine when I was a teen and that was a very hard process to walk through but with steroids and consistency, we got through it. I had a lot of fear with using scissors, and a great amount of fear with any sports or activities, if there was a slight scratchy feeling in my eye it was immediate fear of rejecting it. I battled so much of that fear until around age 30. The last time I was scared was in 2020 when a student hit me in the face and knocked my glasses off, it’s not constant fear anymore but occasional. Whew, did it take me some time to calm that adrenaline down then!! He actually broke them and my work so graciously replaced them.
I thank God my eye was not damaged as much as it could have been. There are countless times when it was known that God intervened in my healing process. There are plenty more details left out here. This was one of the largest traumas of my life. I did not know how to process all of this. I had years stolen from having a normal childhood. I am so grateful for the medical needs being met and for how well my eye is doing now.
Until next time,
Janette
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