I’m going to look almost normal! (At least, almost as normal as I ever looked.)
The brilliant Dr. Polonski operated on my upper eyelid yesterday, and once the swelling goes down and the stitches dissolve, I’m going to look almost like my old self! My eye is finally open, so my field of vision is a good 50% bigger. I can’t tell yet how well I’ll be able to see, because I have ointment in my eye that blurs everything, but the larger field of vision is already a marked improvement. On the other hand, my wide-open pupil is almost fully exposed, and I’m starting to notice some sensitivity to light. (Our house is pretty dark, so I haven’t had much exposure yet.) The next steps will be to try a corrective lens and, later, another surgery to tighten my lower lid.
I was awake during the surgery so that Dr. Polonski could tell what effect he was having. He had me sit up a few times (gravity makes the face look different when one is lying down) till he got it right. And, boy, did he! I’m so happy.
He had his nurse take this photo with his iPhone during the surgery so that I could see what I will look like. This is before he put in stitches, and, of course, before the swelling set in. He himself was so excited about the results that, when I headed to recovery, he went to the waiting room to show the photo to Karen and my sister Amaranth and my friends Pat and Darcey (I travel with an entourage these days—at least when I go for surgery).

Here I am during my last surgery.
The surgery was painful, because he couldn’t numb the area where he was cutting away scar tissue, but I came out of the surgery wide awake and ready to go home. I’ll take the pain any day over the nausea and long recovery associated with general anesthesia.
Those of you who have seen me in person will know what a significant improvement this is in my appearance since the accident. I am so grateful for Dr. Polonski’s skills and, more, for his continued dedication to seeing that I recover as fully as possible. He remarked again yesterday how shocked he was when he first saw me, by the severity of the initial damage. No one meeting me now could guess how bad it was. Hallelujah!
And thank you again to all of you who have been pulling for me through this long journey. It’s not over yet, but you have made every step a good deal more bearable.