I was told on Thursday afternoon that the hospital needed me to photograph a surgery for them that would be taking place the next morning. It was an eye surgery. I thought, "Oh god, I don't know if I can photograph this." I'm one of those people that can't watch my friends put their contacts in. Oh, man. But I wanted to have the experience of seeing an eye surgery, so the next morning, I went for the 10:30am surgery in the OT. I saw the young girl sitting outside the OT doors, waiting to be prepped and operated on. She didn't look scared. She just sat there. The doctors came out from behind the doors and circled around her, asking her questions, then moving her up onto the gurney. I put on some scrubs and walked into the room. The girl had already been sedated. The doctor was putting on his white latex gloves when he looked over at me standing in the corner with my camera around my neck. He looked at me and said, "You also have a strabisma," (loosley translated, he was referring to my lazy eye). "Yeah." "Well, why haven't you had surgery yet?" "Oh, I did when I was 5, but it didn't work." "Why didn't you try again?" "Well, other eye doctors told me the surgery wasn't covered under insurance because it was purely cosmetic." "No, it's reconstructive surgery. I do adult strabismas all the time and I get insurance coverage for all of my patients. It's just semantics, the way you write up the paperwork." "Oh." "Where are you from in the states? I know a lot of good eye doctors who do adult strabismas and I can refer you to one in your area." "I'm from San Francisco." To which the doctor handed me a card and replied, "Here's my number in San Francisco. Call me in Jan. and you can have the surgery by March."
I stepped back into the corner and the surgery on the little girl began. I watched the doctor cut into the girl's eyelid. I watched the blood pour from her eye. I photographed for what felt like forever (but maybe was about 15 minutes, in reality) and I began to sweat. All of a sudden, my camera got heavy. Really heavy. I pulled the camera down from my eye and turned my head. The room kept spinning around me. I was about to pass out. I moved my feet toward another observer in the room who was doing nothing to operate on the girl. He saw me, grabbed my shoulders, turned me around and walked me out of the room. He was really nice. He sat me down and I found out he was a friend of the eye doctors. They were in the rotary club together back in San Francisco. His name was Eric and he works at Wells-Fargo back home. He took me to check-up on the kids they had already taken to recovery from other surgeries earlier that morning. I just stayed sitting. I was still a little out of it. Eventually, they wheeled in the girl that I had seen during surgery. Needless to say, I didn't see the eye doctor again before he was to leave that afternoon to go to Bangladesh. I found out that the team of doctors that worked with him at the hospital were going to pick him up from his hotel and take him to the airport, I jumped in the backseat of the Land Cruiser and rode along to the hotel. When we got there, the doc was standing outside with his luggage. I got out of the car and walked up to him. He smiled and asked if I was ok, because he had seen me get ushered out of the OT room. He hugged me and told me he would see me in San Francisco. This doc was so genuine. A really cool guy and I'm stoked that I've finally gotten some questions answered about the possibility of having surgery.
