Pirate Daddy

It has been a wonderful week with the birth of my third daughter. Lydia is already showing her personality and just getting cuter by the day. However, I did have a weird experience on Thursday night last week while still at the hospital. I was taking a quick nap and woke up to go home and let the dog out. On the way out to the house, I noticed that the lights on the left side of the road were very dim - almost as if I had blown out a headlight.

I continue home and realize that when I pulled into the driveway, both headlights were fine. "I'm just tired" I thought. I let the dog out and return to the hospital. Morning came quickly and it was time to get discharged from the hospital. When I awoke, it felt like something was in my eye and it hurt and was quite itchy. I also noticed a slight shadow in the center of my eye. I remembered that the night before I had fallen asleep with my knuckles on my left hand in my eye. "Probably the reason for the pain" I thought. The itchy feeling was kind of like my eye was asleep. I figured it would be better over the weekend.

Fast forward to Monday morning. My sight had diminished to the point it was fuzzy in my center point vision and was like I was looking through a darkly tinted window. I picked up the phone and called the eye doctor and they told me to come on down. I was there for five hours. After relentless eye drops and poking at my eye, and tons of pictures I had my diagnosis.

"OCULAR HEMORRHAGE BROUGHT ON MY RETINAL HEMANGIOMA" The doctor said clearly. It is as bad as it sounds. In a nutshell, I had at least one blood vessel that blew up inside my eye and flooded into the retina of my left eyeball.

"Mr. Hendrix, you are legally blind in your left eye." He said.

The life-long fear of losing my sight seemed to be turning into a reality. Tomorrow I begin a 3 round treatment of shots right into my eyeball - through the pupil with a big-ass syringe full of a drug called Avastin. It's a nasty chemotherapy drug used to treat tumors. It cuts the blood supply off to the tumor. Although not approved for used in this form of treatment by the FDA, There is an ok result in "off label" treatment for macular disorders such as mine. Provided I don't stroke out or have a heart attack from the medicine, there is a good chance that the bleeding in my eye will stop. After three shots if I’m still bleeding, it is not going to work and the doctors will not do anything else for me. If the bleeding stops, there is a slim chance that my body will absorb the blood in my eye and some vision will be regained. I will not have my original eyesight back in its pre-hemorrhage condition.

So today the Mrs. ran out and got me an eye patch. The reason is that with my left eye being as useful for seeing as a hard-boiled egg, it's causing my right eye to really strain. It's actually better if I don't see anything coming in my left eye. I strap on the eye patch and Emma heard the elastic band snap against my forehead. She peeked over the couch and squealed

"HI PIRATE DADDY!!!!!"

She giggled and went back to her cartoons. I came over and sat down in my chair and started to work on the computer. She came up to me and said "Daddy you are so crazy. Why are you being a pirate man?"

I explained to her that Daddy has a booboo in his eye and the eye patch kind of made it feel better.

"Oh can I see your booboo?" she asked.

"Well my booboo is inside my eye where you can't see it" I replied.

She seemed concerned and thought for a moment. "Will it get better Daddy?" she asked.

"I'm not sure baby" I replied. "God will make it all better if he wants to and if he decides to use my booboo to help someone else then that is fine."

"Ooooooooooooook you silly Pirate Daddy." She said.

If my little girls see someone that has a problem and just accept them the way they are, I think the Mrs. and I are doing something right.

I am proud of my wife and children and love them more than I can express.