So here’s how it happened.
A lot of people have been asking about my eye surgery; why I had the
surgery, what they did, how I found out about it, etc. Lots of great questions that you probably
cannot figure out the answer to through facebook status updates or random
pictures that have been posted. So I
wanted to post this to let everyone know how God worked every small detail out
in this process and how excited I am to see His hand in this area of my
life. One of my all time favorite
verses, and one that God definitely used to walk me through this process is
Psalm 37:23-24: “The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He
delights in his way. When he falls, he
will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.” My goal in this post is to show you all how
God planned my steps and held my hand and guided me exactly where I am now.
I was born with a stigmatism in my left eye that caused my
brain to favor my right eye and thus caused my left eye to be a lazy eye or the
official term is a strabismus. When I
was younger my parents would patch my right eye and did all that the doctors said
to do but it didn’t help at all. Growing
up I just knew there was nothing else that could be done and so I learned to
deal. It bothered me but when you have
no other options you learn to cope. So
that’s what I did. Life for me was
normal. Although I did my best to be a
confident person it still caused some major insecurity for me and I would
frequently pray for God to heal my eye.
I would pray and it seemed like God was just telling me no because
nothing would happen. I had resolved
that this was going to be my “thorn in my flesh” and I was just going to have
to deal. But, God was planning my steps.
I went to the doctor for a vaccination for Haiti and so,
because everything in my life is a complicated process, I had to get a new
general practitioner doctor which meant blood work and a complete
physical. At the physical the nurse
asked me the generic questions about medical history and any surgeries in my
past. As far as I knew I told her that I
had some eye surgeries when I was little but nothing since then. She then proceeded to ask me if I had seen a
doctor about my eye recently to which I told her no, there was after all
nothing they could do. She said that
they worked closely with a doctor in Fayetteville (25 minutes from my house)
that specialized in adult strabismus.
And of course my response was “I don’t have vision insurance and I
cannot afford a specialist!” She went on
to explain that he actually took medical insurance and gave me the number for
me just to check it out.
When I called and made an appointment I honestly didn’t even
think I would go but he took my medical insurance which I found strange so I
figured I would at least give myself the option. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my parents. The appointment was two months from away and
I was so convinced that I was just going to be disappointed and the last thing
I wanted was for people to be sad for me.
My pride refused to let me be vulnerable in that way. When the day for the appointment finally came
I almost didn’t even go. I was busy at
work with a group and I just didn’t want to rearrange my schedule for
disappointment. But, as God would line
my steps up, the group is one that I love dearly who of course was so
understanding and could run their whole program without me even there so I
decided to take a chance and I went to the appointment.
Dr. Greenberg’s office was packed. There were people everywhere and my
appointment that was originally at 11 ended up being at 1. I was so annoyed sitting in that waiting room
that I almost left several times. In
fact I went to the nurse and told her I was leaving that I couldn’t spend all
day there but it just happened to be time for me to go back, another God
thing. Dr. Greenberg ran all kinds of
tests and then looked at me and said, “yes, you have an adult strabismus” to
which I thought “thank you captain obvious, can I go now?” But what caught me
off guard was what he said next. In the
most nonchalant, confident way he just said “oh yeah, I can fix that.” I
thought I was going to fall out of my chair. He explained that he was a
specialist in adult strabismus and was honestly the best in the field. It would be a surgery and it would take time
to heal but he could do what I thought would never be done.
Over the next week or two God showed up in crazy ways. There were several things I knew had to
happen before I could have the surgery.
I knew it had to be cheap. I
could not afford to pay an astronomical amount for the surgery. I thought best case scenario it would cost me
$1000 and that was all I could handle.
The next thing, and I even mentioned this to a friend, is that ideally
it would be done in October. My job is so hectic in November and December and I
knew anything in that time would be impossible.
But, Dr. Greenberg only preforms adult surgeries once a month and he has
a lengthy waiting list so I didn’t know how much control I could have over
that. And the final thing was I would
need a week off work, and thus a week off of school because I wouldn’t be able
to do school work for that week.
The first call from Irene (my little angel nurse) was a
scheduling call. She called to inform me
that the only date Dr. Greenberg had within the next few months was on October
12th but that if I wanted it she’d schedule me. So, of course, seeing as how that’s what I
had secretly hoped for, I jumped on that schedule. Irene asked me where I worked and when I told
her GA Baptist Children’s Home we immediately became friends. We spent an hour on the phone talking about
her son that she had adopted who was now a teenager. She had so many questions about kids from
backgrounds like GBCH and I had so many questions about my surgery. She was truly a God send.
My next concern was school.
Like a crazy person I had signed up for 12 hours of graduate level
classes to be done in 8 weeks. This
averaged out to about three papers a week and minimum of two exams a week. But as God would have it, those eight weeks
ended on Friday, October 12th the day of my surgery (you can’t make
this stuff up). The next call was to my insurance. I was so nervous about this one. The verdict was if Dr. Greenberg was in
network I would pay my deductible of $250 and then everything else was covered.
If he was not in network I’d pay my deductible and 20% of the bill which would
end up at about $1000. But see God had
my back and Dr. Greenberg just happened to be in network. So to this date I’ve paid $250 and everything
else is covered by someone so much bigger than my insurance company.
The week of the surgery came and I was a nervous wreck. Dr. Greenberg told me there was an 80% chance
of success and I was terrified. Very few
people knew about the surgery (again my pride) but one friend at work knew and
asked me how I was feeling. She happened to be sitting beside another coworker
with a daughter my age. This coworker
asked what kind of surgery I was having and to escape being rude I explained it
to her. She told me that her daughter
had the same exact surgery when she was younger. I knew they were from Arkansas so I asked if
her doctor was in Arkansas and she said he was when the surgery was done but
they had actually followed him to Atlanta.
Her daughter’s doctor was Dr. Greenberg, the same man preforming my
surgery in only two days. Again God had
planned my steps and ensured that I would feel at peace and trust in the fact
that he could put people in my life when He wanted to.
So I had the surgery on October 12th and spent a
week at home recovering. The surgery was
a success. My left eye is now straight
and moves in sync with my right eye. My
vision is improving in my left eye and now that it’s working like it should we’re
going to look at ways to get my vision fixed completely. It won’t be completely set and finished for
about two months and it will be swollen and red for about another two weeks but
it worked. I am beyond excited about
it. It’s quite the adjustment and it
still throws people off but it’s fixed. So I had to write this post. God showed up in my life and worked a miracle
and I had to tell His story. Through it all God has showed that He is right by
my side. God planned my steps. He held my hand and He answered my
prayer.
