First Impressions

This thing is weird!

Not really. The eye itself is really realistic, and often I get no reaction at all when I run into folks I know. It seems they look at you and forget that you lost an eye. I look pretty "normal" (at least as normal as I ever am), so they do not react to the new eye at all. Once they remember what has happened, they are amazed at how real it looks!

The glue that holds the thing on is a bit of a hassle to work with. You paint a band of the glue around the entire perimeter of the silicon piece with a cotton swab, and let it dry until it turns clear. I found out that using a hair dryer speeds up this step. You also paint a similar band around your face where the eye patch will go and let that dry also. Then comes the fun part.

You get one shot at positioning the thing correctly. Once the glue makes contact, well that is where it is going to go. It is very hard to pull it back off and reposition it, so learning where it goes takes practice. Peggy put it on for me before I left Houston, I tried to put it on once, but forgot to shake up the glue enough and let it dry, so that was a mess that failed. I let Cheryl put it on after we reviewed the procedure and that try worked pretty well. Finally, today I put it on myself with some success. I am not convinced it is in the right spot. It looks too low to me, but Cheryl, Dr. Scholl, and several at school today did not see anything wrong

So, it looks like I am getting the hang of putting it on well enough to start thinking about making this a habit.

Taking it off is something else indeed!

Eye Removal

The only thing I can say about this process it is looks like a horror movie! Basically, you grab a loose piece of "skin" (silicone) and pry the thing off of your face. You can use a wet cotton swab to help loosen it up, but you basically peel your eye off of your face. It looks as strange as it sounds!

Then you have a session of cleanup to do. You have to soak the silicon under a rag full of hot water for some time to loosen up the glue, then peel it off of the silicon, which is not easy to do. You have to be careful not to damage the silicon which is pretty thin around the edges where the glue goes. That glue is tough stuff! Once the glue residue is gone, you wipe the thing down with an alcohol swab and put it to sleep in a covered plastic bowl. (No, the eye does not close, it just sits there staring out into space. It is an "orbital" prosthesis after all!)

Finally, you get to do something similar to your face to get the glue off of that! This is also a tedious process, but must be done so you can repeat the entire process the next day. Phew!

So far the glue has held tight to my face for over 12 hours. It was just showing signs of coming lose around my nose when I removed it last night before bedtime. If that continues, I will make it through my long teaching days with no problem. Still, I need to carry my emergency supply and storage supplies with me, and the old eye patch just in case.

Welcome to my new life with an artificial eye! At least it looks better than the pirate style I wore all lest semester!

Ear Check

Cheryl and I visited with Dr. Scholl this morning, to get an ear cleaning and see how that problem is doing. The good news on that front is that my left ear was not anywhere as clogged with debris as it has been, and he could see the ear drum. That is a good sign, meaning that the outer part of my ear is returning to normal. With any luck the swelling around the eustachian tube will go down and the fluid behind my ear drum will drain away, meaning that I may regain the hearing in my left ear. Dr. Scholl want to wait longer to see how things proceed, and only try the ear tube trick if things do not improve. Even though this has been going on for a year now, healing in the face of 70 radiation shots takes time, and I have not waited long enough.

We have our collective fingers crossed, and prayers are always welcome!

School Starting

The rest of this week will be spent getting things ready for the start of school next Tuesday (after Martin Luther King Day). I have lectures to tune up, a website to get into shape, plenty to keep me busy. Oh, and eye to glue on and peel off. Such fun!