Third Eye

Ahhhh, UCLA in the fall. I don't even know what that means. I don't have much of a frame of reference to make a sentimental statement like that. But I was back down there yesterday, this time to meet with a plastic surgeon about fixing my eye lid. Now, I'm not an easy, normal case where I just have droopy old man's eye lids and want a lift. I'm rocking a sweet disease that's pretty much never going to stop rocking ME. That complicates things. The doc told me he could do a procedure on my eye lid that would lift it but that he couldn't make it look just like my right eye. AKA normal. There was talk of a few small incisions and using my eyebrow muscle as it's stronger than my eye lid muscles and before I knew it I had an appointment for Nov. 2nd. I'm sitting in a daze with the woman who is schedualing my appointment and I'm absently yet frantically scratching the back of my neck and trying my damnest to hold back my tears. I don't know just why I was so upset. Why I am STILL so upset. I'm scared and I'm anxious. I feel like God DAMN, didn't I just have this dealt with?! But I didn't. And this surgery will be another one I get to be awake for. Joy. I feel like I should feel like this isn't a big deal, I've done this before and that first eye lid surgery was way more complicated than this one will be, and I'll be fine, and that I should be glad there is something they can do for me. But I don't feel that way. I just feel scared and anxious and terrified to my bones that I will wake up looking worse than I already do. I know, I know. "Niki, I don't even notice your eye!" Liars. No, I'm sure there are people who don't. I am, unfortunately, not one of them. Then again, it's my face. And I want my 15 year old face back. And I'm never going to get it back. And that makes me unbelievably, uncontrolably upset.I don't want to be laid out on the couch for another week, unable to go anywhere and in pain and black and blue and awesome looking. It's such an emotional toll and I've been tapped enough in that department over my eye this year. I'm wandering around the eye institute, crying behind my sunglasses, on the phone with my dad who feels a thousand pounds of guilt over me having this problem, trying to tell him what the doctor said and trying to understand why I'm so upset and trying to grasp the fact that I am going to have to have this surgery again in a few years and have that eyeball surgery again in a few years and that this isn't going away....helpless. Small. Scared. Alone.And the bright yellow drops they put in my eyes to take their pressure are streaming down my face and out my nose. I was a sight to behold. I'm tired. And I'm terrified. And I can't seem to get settled inside or stop the tears. Damn it all.