Eighteen Months Read online

  “Don’t worry, dear, this won’t hurt at all. You’ll be fine.” She spoke kindly, as though she really did care.

  I knew I wasn’t going to be fine for a long time, but I was too scared to say it.

  Once again, the doctor came into my field of vision and what looked like a spear, but was actually a very thin hypodermic needle, moved toward the upper part of my eye. It must have gone in right above my eye, near where the inside of my eyelid meets my eye, though I could feel nothing. It only took a second. Then he did it again on the other side.

  After several minutes, they sat me upright, still strapped in place, eyes still propped open. My head strap was taken off. A bar was moved toward me, and I had to rest my chin on the padded part of it. The nurse then pushed my forehead against another pad above the bar, and I was strapped to it, with a band going across the back of my head. I couldn’t move my head or eyes.

  The lights in the room were dimmed.

  “Now Ms. Adams, I’m going to pulse each eye three times with this laser,” the doctor told me as he moved the cylinder attached to the overhead boom down and positioned one end of it in front of my right eye. “This will catalyze the polymerization of the optic-nerve-blocking agent. After that, the polymerization will continue for about five minutes. As it does, your vision will fade to nothing.”

  Oh God! This was it! They were going to take my sight now!

  “Please don’t do this,” I said in a tiny voice. I don’t know if they heard me, but neither one said anything.

  I could see a faint light at the end of the tube pointing at my eye. I was almost overwhelmed with the horror of the situation. The doctor was adjusting its position. “Ready,” he said – a statement, not a question.

  Immediately, I saw three bright blue flashes, less than a second apart. That was it. I felt nothing. The doctor repositioned the laser in front of my left eye and it pulsed three times again.

  Then he turned the lights back up, and the nurse removed the clips holding my eyes open. I blinked immediately, then repeatedly while she unfastened my head and tilted my chair about half-way back again.

  The doctor told me to sit relatively still as the treatment took effect. “I’ll return shortly to test your nerve response. If there’s still potential for some stimulation to be transported through your optic nerves, I’m required by law to give you an additional treatment. That’s why we numb and immobilize your eyes for almost an hour.”

  “I’ll stay here with you,” the nurse told me, patting my shoulder in a comforting gesture.

  With that, he left.

  The nurse stayed in the room with me, talking in a subdued voice and patting my shoulder from time-to-time to make me feel better. I wasn’t as panicked, but I was terribly anxious, waiting for the awful thing that was about to happen.

  I realized a couple of minutes later that it was happening already, the brightly-lit room was becoming dim and fuzzy, and no one was moving the dimmer switch.

  "I’m already having trouble seeing. I think it’s affecting my eyes already. Is that what’s supposed to happen?”

  "Yes. Once the laser triggers the medication, everything goes rapidly,” she said.

  It got darker and darker. Toward the end, my vision seemed to shrink to a small circle directly in front of me, and then it was gone. There was nothing.

  Oh my God! I was blind! I was actually blind!

  I kept blinking my eyes, trying in vain to get my vision to return. Everything was black. I couldn’t see anything at all!

  “Ah … ah … nurse! I … I … I can’t see! Everything is black!

  “It’s alright dear, that’s what’s supposed to happen. You’re not in any further danger here. You’ll be fine.”

  “No, no, no! This isn’t right!” I screamed, but not loudly. I found myself afraid of doing anything to rattle the System that had done this to me. I was suddenly afraid of authority, in a way that I had never been before.

  “You joined the program as compensation for the, regrettably, poor decisions you made,” the nurse said patiently. “This is what it’s all about. In a few months, maybe a little more, when this is all over, you’ll be a better person for it. Trust me. In a week or two, the darkness will seem completely normal to you.”

  “This isn’t normal! I’m blind! Please … please help me!” I didn’t know what to say, so that’s what I said.

  “Unfortunately, dear, it’s normal for you now. Honestly, you’ll adjust to it surprisingly quickly. What I was trying to say, was that in a very short while, you’ll feel that being sightless is your normal way to be. It’ll be ordinary, routine; it’ll simply be the way you are. For a while, you’ll wake up in the morning and be momentarily shocked at not being able to see. Then that feeling will go away. You’ll wake up knowing what senses you can rely on. You’ll stop thinking of sight.”

  I wanted to argue with her, but she suddenly said, “What’s your first name, dear?”

  No doubt she was trying to divert me from my blindness. It wasn’t going to work. But I told her my name was Natalie.

  “Natalie, you’re a young, blind woman. You’re going to be blind for a while, but not forever. There’s nothing you can do about that. You’ll have to accept it for what it is. Your eyes don’t work anymore. Nothing on earth can fix your eyes right now. But over time, your sight will return.”

  “I was supposed to start work in a little over a week. I just graduated. I’m only 22.”

  “Then you’ll either start on time, or call them and tell them you’ve had a medical emergency that keeps you from starting for three to five months. The state isn’t allowed to tell them that it’s blinded you as punishment, but it will tell them that you are, indeed, blind. So the state will back your story to your employer. At that point, it’s up to your new employer. They can wait or not. If not, you’ll find another job. That’s all you can do – this is what you agreed to in order to avoid serious time in serious lock-up.”

  “All I did was drive through a disabled persons’ crosswalk, park in a loading zone which unintentionally blocked an ambulance, and use a handicapped bathroom stall!” I sobbed.

  Actually, when I said it that way, it did sound worthy of some punishment. But not this!

  “Natalie, I don’t know any details … but I assume that your punishment and rehabilitation sentence was fair.”

  “But they made me blind for a what I thought was safely driving in front of a blind woman and a few minor offenses! Now I might lose the job I went to college for four years for!”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. They’ll probably be willing to wait for you.”

  “I hope so! But how am I going to live day-to-day?”

  “Like every other blind person does. And the state will provide for someone to teach you how to cope with being sightless.”

  I heard the door open and Dr. Genevese apparently reentered.

  “Ms. Adams, the state requires that I test your eyes, in order to determine that your blindness is complete and will last at least the required three months. This test isn’t perfect in predicting, but it is required.”

  “What else are you going to do to me?” I asked angrily.

  He apparently paused before replying. “I’m going to put electrodes on your temples and then examine the signals that might be coming from the optic nerves of your eyes. You may feel slight pressure behind your eyes as I do this.”

  I thought that this guy had a serious problem with bedside manner. Because of his – what felt to me like - arrogant attitude, I started to get angry. I wanted to tell him to stick his test, but I didn’t. I was blind, and that made me feel very inferior.

  I felt the electrodes as someone stuck them to my temples. Then everything was quiet.

  I heard him say, “There’s residual activity,” and then mumble something, not understandable, to the nurse. I heard what sounded like an argument – more like a disagreement – going on between them. Eventually, Dr. Genevese said, “Ms. Adams, the instrume
nt indicates that there is a very slight signal bleeding through the optic nerves of both of your eyes. There’s certainly nothing concerning about that, but the state specifically requires me to render your optic nerve inert, and incapable of working, for a minimum of three months. Realize that the state does not care if your vision returns in three months or three centuries. The law is written such that you must be blind for the punishment period. If you are blind for longer than that … for, say, five months, the state neither cares, nor will it offer compensation.

  “With the slight bleed-through that my instruments register, I’m required by the Disabilities Act statute as implemented by River’s Edge, to re-inject the medication at a five-fold increase in concentration, and re-catalyze it with the laser pulses. Then, I must recheck you for activity shortly afterwards.”

  “Why do you need to do something else? I guarantee you that I can’t see anything.”

  “And I believe you. But the law is the law.”

  “What will this mean to me?”

  “Maybe nothing at all. It will, at least, insure the minimum period of your sightlessness. Maybe it will lengthen the amount of time that you will be blind.”

  “No! I was told three to five months! I don’t want to be blind longer than that! How much longer?”

  “Ms. Adams, you will be blind as long as you will be blind. You will avoid prison. I will do what I’m required to do. The second treatment insures that you will be sightless for the minimum period of your commitment, three months. Regrettably, it usually lengthens the three-month period to five full months plus a couple more months for complete recovery. But, on occasion, it has lengthened the period to a year or more.”

  “THEN NO! Leave me alone!”

  “I cannot; the law is the law. You have no say in the punishment the state exacts, or how it’s administered, any more than you would have a say if you were locked up. Nurse, please immobilize the patient again and restrain and gag her this time.”

  “I’m sorry, Natalie,” the nurse said. I felt straps connect to my arms and legs and a ball gag enter my mouth. This was awful! I could be blind for a year! And I already knew being blind was a terrible experience!

  I heard another heated discussion. I probably couldn’t have heard it before they blinded me, but now my hearing already seemed to be heightened, as though to compensate for the fact that I was sightless. I heard the nurse say, “Regardless of what the law says, I don’t think you should go that high in concentration. She’s just a young girl, new to River’s Edge. Give her a break. She doesn’t deserve to be blind for a year or more.”

  “The court determined that she needs a lesson, and that’s what we’re here to provide.” He said quietly. “The law requires that I re-treat in this way. She’ll fit right in in River’s Edge.”

  “If you use the lower dose, no one will ever know.” The kindly nurse said.

  “I will not risk my license or contract over this. She still has weak optic nerve activity. Thus, I must administer the increased dosage and catalyze its polymerization.”

  “NO!” I tried to yell through the gag, not realizing that my struggles were making the doctor angrier. An anger he was now even more willing to take out on me. I didn’t care if the law did require him to do it! I didn’t sign up for this! I started to sob.

  I felt the chair tip back again, and heard the nurse encourage me kindly to be still, it would all be over soon. She said, almost lovingly, that there was nothing I could do.

  I tried to struggle, but to no avail, as someone opened my eyes and held them open with the clips.

  “That’s too concentrated …” I heard the nurse hiss in a whisper to Dr. Genevese.

  “Be quiet,” he said in response. “I’m following the rule.” I felt the slightest of pressures above my eyes, under my eyelids. I assume he injected the medication as he had before.

  After several minutes, the nurse sat me upright and strapped me, immobile, to the bar again.

  I heard the doctor say, “Ready,” as he had before. He must have zapped me with the laser in each eye for the second time.

  I could feel myself being unstrapped and half-reclined.

  “I’ll be back to check again,” the doctor said. Then I heard the door close.

  “What did he do to me?” I asked, terribly afraid again.

  “He needed to make sure that the treatment made you blind for the three months you were sentenced to,” the nurse said. “The state requires him to do it. He followed the rules.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked the nurse.

  “Trudy,” she replied.

  “Tell me the truth, Trudy, did he make me blind for a longer period?”

  “Probably, Natalie.”

  “How long will I be blind?” My heart started to hammer again.

  “For at least three months.” Her voice was flat now, with a tinge of pity.

  “How long will I be sightless, Trudy? Really.”

  “Most likely, a year or more,” she said. I panicked. “The doctor was within the authority the state’s given him to do what he did to you. To meet the letter of the law, he really had no choice. Since the instrument detected small activity in your optic nerves, he was legally required to put the most concentrated medication available in your eyes, and catalyze its blocking action with the laser.”

  “Oh … ah … no, no, no … this isn’t happening!” I shouted.

  “It’s happened, Natalie. It is what it is. When he rechecks you in a few minutes, I’ll ask him to do a more in-depth check so you’ll know more about how long you’ll be blind. Then you can better plan your upcoming months.”

  I sat there stunned, panicked, and more emotional than I’d ever been in my 22 years of life, except when I’d heard that my parents had been killed. Trudy continued to try to calm me down, and kept hold of my hand with one of hers, while she gently massaged my back with the other. My eyes were wide open but unmoving, there was no mistaking that, but I saw nothing, only blackness. Not even a glimmer of light. Strangely, I was having trouble recalling what she looked like.

  I decided it didn’t matter, since I couldn’t see her anymore, anyway.

  A while later, the doctor returned and repeated the test with patches on my temples.

  “Good,” he said, “there is absolutely no activity in your disabled optic nerves. It’s as it should be, as though your optic nerves were missing or not working at all.”

  “They aren’t.” I said. “Dr. Genevese … please tell me … how long will I be like this?”

  “I’ll have the estimate in a minute …” I waited, hearing clicking and tapping noises that, I assumed, he was making.

  “My best estimate is that you’ll be totally blind for about sixteen months …”

  “OH MY GOD!” I exclaimed. “You weren’t supposed to do that to me!”

  “I followed standard, legally-required procedures. Neither you nor I had any recourse. Here is what the state requires for your sentence, your punishment as it were: I must administer the optic-nerve-disabling treatment by injecting two cubic centimeters of a specific concentration of monomer into each eye. I must then test within 30 minutes, using a state-sanctioned instrument that detects optic-nerve activity – meaning attempts by your eyes to signal your brain. If there is ANY detectable, residual signal through the nerves – which I did find in your case – then I’m to inject the monomer again at maximum concentration, followed by laser activation. I’m to repeat that procedure until your optic nerves are not functioning, meaning that your brain receives no visual input. You still had a slight signal at your eye-nerve junction when I first tested, but now you no longer do. This happens about six percent of the time.

  “Of the six percent who have some small level of still-active signals, even if not detected visually by the subject, about 40 percent will be able to see before their three-month sentence is completed. As you know, the state requires that all offenders remain blind for at least three-months before vision returns, EVEN IF
THAT MEANS THAT 60 PERCENT WILL BE BLIND LONGER THAN THE MINIMUM THREE MONTHS.

  “As you now know, you are in that 60 percent.

  “Your eyes will partially recover after about sixteen months. They will be essentially useless for another four weeks or so after that. In other words, you’ll remain legally blind. Over the next six weeks, they will provide useful sight, though you will require corrective lenses for that time. Fortunately, your eyes will be stable during that time, and lenses made at the beginning will work for you for the whole six weeks or so. After that, your eyes will jump back to where they were before you were treated. That happens 99 times out of 100, which is enough for the state. The other one percent continue to have vision problems, though usually in only one eye. Anyway, you won’t be blind or legally blind within a year and a half.”

  I was too horrified to say anything.

  “Ms. Adams, the nurse will stay with you until your trainer arrives from UDS - Uptown Disability Services - in a few minutes. I wish you well.”

  He left. I was so far from well … but I didn’t say so. I was blind, and I’d be this way for a very long time. I could almost have accepted this, if I’d had an accident or a disease. But River’s Edge had taken my sight as punishment! For a few little mistakes! My life had changed in the space of a couple hours. My future was now anything but certain.

  The only certainty was that I was sightless, and, as a result, seriously disabled.

  “What am I going to do?” I sadly asked Trudy, who was still holding my hand as she unstrapped me from the treatment chair.

  “UDS will be there to help you, like they would any other blind citizen,” she said. “You live in River’s Edge, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, not very fondly. At that moment, I hated what my new hometown had done to me.

  “They have the best support environment for their disabled citizens of any community in the whole country,” she noted, with a lot more enthusiasm than I felt.

  “Trudy, I don’t know how to be blind. I don’t want to be blind.”

  “UDS will teach you how. For now, I think it’s best if you try really hard to accept it. If you don’t it will consume you. You still have a life to live, after all.”