The Big thing

I’m 3 years out of College, alone in Sarasota Florida, my friendship with George has blossomed into a relationship. Then one day, a simple day, while pumping gas, I notice my left eye started to strobe light.  I was seeing flashes.  I ignored it. This went on for about 2, 3 days, and I finally said something to George.  Always so medically informed, he told me to take it very seriously and go to the eye doctors immediately.  Well, I never made it out of there.  My left eye had an retina detachment, the doctor performed outpatient surgery immediately and kept on saying how lucky I was to not lose vision after ignoring it for so long.  Most people had hours not days before they permanently lost vision. (This was also very rare for a young person without traumatic injury to the eye to experience.  At a later, much later time, when I was in a joking mood, the doc told me I won the unlucky lottery)  I had a tear at the 11’o clock position, so they inject an air bubble (after a Valium to calm me down) into the eye, and I was to keep my head tilted in such a way that the air bubble would press against the tear 17 hours a day and it will naturally heal in about a months time (WHAT?! Honestly, I was lucky this was before social media and our addiction to screen time really exploded).To better preserve both eyes health, it was suggested that I should not use my eyes too much. I was going crazy.  George bought me books on tape (we are talking circa 2000, so no itunes, podcasts etc… at least maybe not prevalent).The days went by slow, slow, oh so slowly.  As I got closer to my last visit to clear me to go back to work, I got excited and saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  The doctor’s visit quickly turned negative and disastrous.  I was not cleared to go back to work. Worse, I had to have the gas bubble injected again, as the retina did not reattach.I lost it, I did not want to be bed ridden, eyes closed doing nothing for another month anymore.  I uncontrollably cried and was further put in a panic, when one of the nurses came in to tell me, since this was the second outpatient surgery, my insurance was not covering it.  I had to pay the $2000 out of pocket.  I was frantic, and it took 2 Valiums to semi calm me down to do the injection into my eye ball.I stopped speaking, I stopped eating.  I wanted nothing, I did not want to do this anymore.  It was a dark moment in my young, immature life.  The company I was with, also denied additional benefits.  I felt like I was kicked once again, while down by the “MAN!”