“Oh, shit!” I jump up and accidentally send my chair and a cup of pens flying. A stack of papers gets knocked off my desk, too. “Yes, yes, I’m so sorry. It’s been a crazy— Just,shit.I’m on my way. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. I’m so sorry.”
I hang up and grab all my stuff as fast as I can. I can’t find my little spiral-bound notebook that has a list of questions I wrote down after my last ophthalmology appointment. I could’ve sworn it was in that stack of files I just upended.
But there’s no time to comb through it, so I just shoulder my purse and run like hell.
“So did you just, like, really love eyeballs in med school or something?” I ask as Dr. Haggerty dilates my pupils with his little dropper.
He chuckles as he steps back to examine his handiwork. “Oh, no, nothing like that. It’s just that I failed every other specialty and this was the only one that would take me.” When he sees my jaw drop, he laughs again. “I’m joking, Eliana.”
I mime wiping sweat off my forehead. “Guess you flunked bedside manner, too.”
He laughs again. Dr. Haggerty is like if Santa Claus took up running marathons—white beard, booming laugh, but a trim physique and calves I would kill for. “You can blame my dad’s side of the family for both things,” he says. “They’re all eye doctors, which is how I fell into this profession. And they’re all committed pranksters with bone-dry senses of humor, which is how I fell into this little side gig of stand-up comedy. Some patients enjoy it more than others.”
I grin up at him weakly. “If you give me good news today, I’ll laugh louder than you’ve ever heard anyone laugh before. Pinky promise.”
I wish his face didn’t fall when I said that. God, I wish his smile didn’t fade. I wish that merry little twinkle didn’t leave his eye.
“Oh, if only I could, Eliana.” He says it so remorsefully that those few little words all on their own are almost enough to make me cry.
My stomach plummets to approximately the level of my butt. “That doesn’t sound like the beginning of good news.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not.” He settles onto his rolling stool and clasps his hands between his knees. “Eliana, your vision is deteriorating almost exactly on pace with our initial projections.”
I wince and close my eyes.Don’t cry, don’t cry, please don’t?—
Dammit.I’m crying.
“You’ve already lost significant peripheral vision. This does confirm our timeline, assuming decline remains steady at this rate.”
According to the morbid little countdown widget I installed on my phone, today was T-minus eighty-three days until the lights go out. Nice to know that my eyesight is punctual, at least.
“I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear,” Dr. Haggerty continues gently. “But I need you to understand that ‘functional sight’ doesn’t mean you’ll wake up on day ninety completely blind. It’s a gradual process. You’ll notice more tunnel vision, more difficulty with depth perception, more trouble in low light.”
I nod mechanically, but I’m not really hearing him anymore. I guess that somehow, without realizing it, I’d started developing this hope that I was going to come in today and be told that they got everything wrong the first time around.
You’re not going blind—you’re actually gaining SuperVision™!
I know that’s dumb. I didn’t say it was a realistic hope. Just that I really felt it.
“—which is why I’m strongly recommending you begin orientation and mobility training immediately,” Dr. Haggerty is saying. “The earlier you start, the better prepared you’ll be when your vision does fail.”
“Orientation and mobility training,” I repeat numbly.
“Learning to navigate with a white cane, developing your other senses, understanding how to move safely through spaces without relying on sight. That sort of thing.” He rests his hands on his thighs. “I have contacts at the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. They run excellent programs, and I can get you in this week if you’re willing.”
“Okay,” I hear myself say. “Okay, yeah, sure. I guess that’s for the best. Set it up.”
Dr. Haggerty’s face softens. I can’t handle pity right now, I really can’t. I wish he’d just look away.
He keeps talking for a few minutes longer, but I’m fully checked out now. I just try to offer “Mhmms” in what feels like the correct places. Eventually, he pats me on the shoulder and hands me a pamphlet.
I shuffle out of the exam room, through the lobby, and back out into the street.
I’m not sure why I’m feeling so glum. This isn’t anything I didn’t already know. But the sky is grayer than it was when I first walked in and it seems like all the color has been sucked out of the world.
My lips aren’t buzzing anymore, either. It was overstimulating to the max at first, but I almost miss it now that it’s gone.
When I step out on the street, I look up and down the road. To the left is home. The only things waiting for me there are a bag of Doritos and the unlimited black hole that is Netflix.
