One down. Eight to go.

Paul and I made it back from UCLA in record time yesterday. I was dreading the trip cuz I was afraid we would be stuck in traffic for hours, but by some miracle we missed all of that. Paul’s cornea is healing nicely, but we did have a little scare yesterday. After the doctor looked in his eye he announced that he was going to remove a stitch today. That was about the time Paul had a minor heart attack.

You see, Paul has a full blown, mind numbing, body crippling phobia about eyes. He can’t stand to have anything near them. He can’t stand to even see someone else do anything to their eyes. If he sees me rubbing my eyes he yells at me to stop. He absolutely freaks out. The reason he had to have the surgery was because he COULD NOT put contacts in his eyes. The only reason he agreed to have the surgery (besides the fact that his is going blind) was because he knew he would be knocked out. So when the doctor said he was going to remove a stitch from Paul’s eye, he visibly began to shake.

My heart filled with dread as I watched him turn white and ask, “You’re going to knock me out for that, right?” “No,” the doctor replied, “I’ll do it here, it only takes a second.” “What exactly does that entail?” Paul asked, to which the doc replied, “It’s better if you don’t know.” Paul’s anxiety was palpable, and the look of terror on his face was undeniable, so the doctor (Dr. Casey, by the way, he’s THE BEST!) backed away and assured Paul that he wasn’t going to make him do anything he didn’t want to do. He told him that if he didn’t think he could let him remove the stitch that we could go down stairs and put him under.

Now it was my turn to freak out. I can not tell you how awful it was to sign the paper work full of warnings about what might could happen while under anesthesia. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, after signing the papers, I had to watch as they administered the drugs and see Paul go from alert and excited to dull and loopy. I hated it. I mean, I was glad he was put under for the surgery, but I hated seeing him like that. His father and I walked out of the pre-op and promptly began to cry. The thought of going through that again was not a pleasant one.

“Just let him try Paul” I pleaded. He looked nervous and scared, but he looked up at the doctor and said, “Okay. I’ll do it for you.” Dr Casey assured him that he would just try once and if that didn’t work they could use anesthesia. Paul placed his chin on the metal contraption and stared straight ahead while the doctor gently lifted his eye lid. I quietly reminded Paul to breathe. I watched the doctor, but I honestly didn’t see him do anything. About 3 seconds later he said, “Okay. That’s it.” Oh. My. God. That man is amazing.

Paul was so happy he had managed to allow the doctor to remove the stitch he literally began clapping his hands with excitement. Dr. Casey shook Paul’s hand and complimented him on managing his anxiety. “I’m SO proud of you!” I told Paul, to which he beamed with delight. He could hardly contain himself.

“How many more times am I going to have to do that?” asked Paul, to which the doctor explained it depended on how the cornea heals. Then he asked how many stitches he has in his eye. “Well,” Dr. Casey said, “You did have nine. Now you have eight.”

“I have stitches in my eye,” Paul said, “That’s crazy awesome.”