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Greetings to everyone who surfs this neck of the ether,
As a person who window shops for weeks before working up the nerve to just pop in, I have been lurking around (except in my case it has been months
).
The journey my life has been has unfortunately brought me down a path that many of us have woken up to, though for some the awakening is more of a wrecking ball that shatters everything that gave structure to day to day existence. As life tends to be, some things are taken for granted until God no longer grants them to you. All journeys differ and all paths shift like sand in a desert, sometimes fading until you can't see where you began.
I have worn glasses since I could remember, roughly five years old I believe. Three years ago I walked into a laser surgery clinic and left with my glasses in my hand, never to be worn again. I told my friend who drove me there "My life is about to change". If only I knew I was to disseminate that sentence like a sandwich, obsessively searching for the turkey that I ordered. I had been given tuna, and I hate tuna.
I left the USA where I was born to move to Jerusalem when I was 18. I never suffered from dry eye too much despite the desert-like conditions there. Once during my army service I got a bad eye infection and suffered through field training miserable as a dog trying to pee in a round room.
I first got interested in laser eye surgery whilst in the Israeli Defense Forces, mainly as a means to rid myself of cumbersome and potentially dangerous glasses. I tried to wear contact lens but couldn't tolerate them, so I had to suffer wearing glasses as an infantry soldier. For those who know, huffing and puffing in the freezing cold desert at night made my glasses fog up. I was blind in my gas mask. The combination of sweat and dust meant that I always kept a glasses case and a wipey cloth in my vest. It seemed the nuisances never ended!
When I completed my service I immediately returned to the USA to pursue my passion for cooking and attend culinary school in New England. I sold grass in college (
) to pay for LASIK and soon had enough to get the hoity-toity wavefront intralase monstrosity that I worked so hard to pay for. True to the statement I told my friend, it most certainly has changed my life.
I have progressively become angry, manic, pessimistic and more religious all at the same time. I no longer fear anything and have developed a death wish that has already gotten me seriously injured a few times in stupid accidents. With only half a year left of culinary school before I return to Israel to open my own business, I sometimes am left wondering, as with any new thing I seek to undertake in my new life, if I am capable of doing it.
My life, I have conceded, is no longer my own. I strive to help others when I can and take solace in the deeper aspects of our existence. I struggle every day like many of us here do, and in doing so realize that we who have this horrible condition are some of the strongest people in the world.
Thank God most of us have our limbs and can hear birds singing and taste delicious food. I know as well as anybody here how hard it is to concentrate sometimes, and I can only imagine how hard it is in office environments (I work in kitchens and am outdoors all the time). As an amateur writer I have taken a blow with the concentration thing, but my force of will seems to prevail most of the time.
So I would like to extend the warmest of greetings to all of my compatriots that suffer! Know thy suffering is a burden shared.
-jerusalemStone
As a person who window shops for weeks before working up the nerve to just pop in, I have been lurking around (except in my case it has been months
). The journey my life has been has unfortunately brought me down a path that many of us have woken up to, though for some the awakening is more of a wrecking ball that shatters everything that gave structure to day to day existence. As life tends to be, some things are taken for granted until God no longer grants them to you. All journeys differ and all paths shift like sand in a desert, sometimes fading until you can't see where you began.
I have worn glasses since I could remember, roughly five years old I believe. Three years ago I walked into a laser surgery clinic and left with my glasses in my hand, never to be worn again. I told my friend who drove me there "My life is about to change". If only I knew I was to disseminate that sentence like a sandwich, obsessively searching for the turkey that I ordered. I had been given tuna, and I hate tuna.
I left the USA where I was born to move to Jerusalem when I was 18. I never suffered from dry eye too much despite the desert-like conditions there. Once during my army service I got a bad eye infection and suffered through field training miserable as a dog trying to pee in a round room.
I first got interested in laser eye surgery whilst in the Israeli Defense Forces, mainly as a means to rid myself of cumbersome and potentially dangerous glasses. I tried to wear contact lens but couldn't tolerate them, so I had to suffer wearing glasses as an infantry soldier. For those who know, huffing and puffing in the freezing cold desert at night made my glasses fog up. I was blind in my gas mask. The combination of sweat and dust meant that I always kept a glasses case and a wipey cloth in my vest. It seemed the nuisances never ended!
When I completed my service I immediately returned to the USA to pursue my passion for cooking and attend culinary school in New England. I sold grass in college (
) to pay for LASIK and soon had enough to get the hoity-toity wavefront intralase monstrosity that I worked so hard to pay for. True to the statement I told my friend, it most certainly has changed my life.I have progressively become angry, manic, pessimistic and more religious all at the same time. I no longer fear anything and have developed a death wish that has already gotten me seriously injured a few times in stupid accidents. With only half a year left of culinary school before I return to Israel to open my own business, I sometimes am left wondering, as with any new thing I seek to undertake in my new life, if I am capable of doing it.
My life, I have conceded, is no longer my own. I strive to help others when I can and take solace in the deeper aspects of our existence. I struggle every day like many of us here do, and in doing so realize that we who have this horrible condition are some of the strongest people in the world.
Thank God most of us have our limbs and can hear birds singing and taste delicious food. I know as well as anybody here how hard it is to concentrate sometimes, and I can only imagine how hard it is in office environments (I work in kitchens and am outdoors all the time). As an amateur writer I have taken a blow with the concentration thing, but my force of will seems to prevail most of the time.
So I would like to extend the warmest of greetings to all of my compatriots that suffer! Know thy suffering is a burden shared.
-jerusalemStone
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