What do you think? Soothing Kuna with my voice, I attempt to brace her flailing head with my wrists while stabilizing the instruments that hold the twisted implant. I lift my gaze from the microscope for a fleeting glance at my Robert is sitting this one out so he can concentrate on observing. The scrub nurse sorts instruments with a detached air, while the nurse anesthetist stares distractedly at the floor. What kind of teamwork is this? I think. I state the obvious through clenched teeth: “We… need… more… sedation.” What do you think? I lull Kuna back to sleep despite the blinding light in her face, which is covered with a drape. Braced for her next lurch while willing my muscles to relax, I delicately dial the glistening lens into its intended resting place. I aspirate the surgical gel from inside the eye, tear a circular opening in the center of the remaining membrane that holds the implant, and confirm that the pressure is neither too low nor high. I am close to finishing the first eye and am just beginning to close the incision when—bang, an earsplitting boom. My view darkens to nearly black as the operating microscope cuts out. The pit of my stomach registers a free fall. Holding suture material a fraction of a hair’s thickness, my eyes are glued to the barely distinguishable image that lingers in the eyepieces. “I am so sorry, Doctor Rose,” Robert says. “The generator, it has broken.” What do you think? Rendered without useful sight myself, I cradle Kuna’s lolling head and coax the curved needle through its arc, guided purely by the instinct of long experience. Except for my fingertips and the slowly expanding bands of sweat that
What do you think? Soothing Kuna with my voice, I attempt to brace her flailing head with my wrists while stabilizing the instruments that hold the twisted implant. I lift my gaze from the microscope for a fleeting glance at my Robert is sitting this one out so he can concentrate on observing. The scrub nurse sorts instruments with a detached air, while the nurse anesthetist stares distractedly at the floor. What kind of teamwork is this? I think. I state the obvious through clenched teeth: “We… need… more… sedation.” What do you think? I lull Kuna back to sleep despite the blinding light in her face, which is covered with a drape. Braced for her next lurch while willing my muscles to relax, I delicately dial the glistening lens into its intended resting place. I aspirate the surgical gel from inside the eye, tear a circular opening in the center of the remaining membrane that holds the implant, and confirm that the pressure is neither too low nor high. I am close to finishing the first eye and am just beginning to close the incision when—bang, an earsplitting boom. My view darkens to nearly black as the operating microscope cuts out. The pit of my stomach registers a free fall. Holding suture material a fraction of a hair’s thickness, my eyes are glued to the barely distinguishable image that lingers in the eyepieces. “I am so sorry, Doctor Rose,” Robert says. “The generator, it has broken.” What do you think? Rendered without useful sight myself, I cradle Kuna’s lolling head and coax the curved needle through its arc, guided purely by the instinct of long experience. Except for my fingertips and the slowly expanding bands of sweat that
A%20Blind%20Eye%20by%20Aron%20Rose.docx