Monday, April 11, 2011

Eye Eye Captain!

Nick's flying.

Hold on, let me start over. **deep breath**exhale**

Nick's flying. There. I said that with much more conviction.

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That's as far as I got Saturday when I started writing this. While Nick took a test flight, the girls and I headed to Purgatory for some warm, fun, spring skiing - except that it was none of the above. It was socked-in cloudy, the wind blasted and the snow was so slow I had to cross country ski downhill. My fingers and toes were so cold they hurt and every time I looked at the black sky I thought about Nick flying, hoping he and Mike were done already.

Turns out flying is easier for Nick than driving, and after two perfect landings in some of the strongest gusts he's seen at Animas Airpark, they decided the weather was getting too dodgy and called it a day.  He's on his way to California at the moment for his annual TBM recurrency - the owners of the company he was flying for are expecting him back at work asap - and he'll be gone all week. Feels like old times! (I was going to start this post by saying, "Nick is no longer with us," but didn't want to give his mother a heart attack.)

Originally Nick thought he wouldn't be able to work for six months because that's how long the FAA gives you to get used to your new vision, but it turns out that's just for flying alone. He can still train people, as long as they're already pilots. This means he can't deliver people their new planes unless the owner is a pilot and with him, but it does mean that soon he'll be able to do some kind of work.

But first he needs what looks like an eye. What's in there now is spooky and, at a guess, would not inspire confidence in a client. If his gorgeous pony-tail freaked out safari-goers in Namibia, a vacant iris-less globe in an eye socket would no doubt be worse. Hard to imagine that in a month you'll hardly be able to tell anything happened at all. This will be good for business.

When the surgeon removed his eye in ABQ, he replaced it with a spherical implant, attached Nick's eye muscles around it, then surrounded the front part with a thin layer of tissue called the conjuctiva, from the inside of his eyelid. But here's the cool part: the implant is made of coral. Turns out the structure and chemical make-up of certain types of marine coral are almost identical to human bone. This makes it "invisible" to the immune system, so there should be virtually no risk of rejection. Because it's porous, Nick's muscles will grow into the implant and it will become a part of him.

A modern "glass eye" is actually made from the sclera (white part) of an organ donor's eye, encased in acrylic, I think, and the iris is painted onto that. So the implant stays put, if all goes well, and the "eye" is a contact lens-like cover which goes over the conjunctiva tissue and can be removed. I think it's fascinating and want to be there in ABQ when the artist paints it (whether or not I can depends on when it is and child/canine care).

Speaking of painting, I'm currently covered in glaze and surrounded by dozens of tiles. Haven't done this in a while! It's one of the reasons I haven't written in a spell. The best of the other reasons is that life is returning to normal.

I've decided I've enjoyed writing this blog so much I'm going to keep it up, but only weekly lest I bore you, so if you're interested in joining me for the rest of this ride I'd love to have you along. If not, no worries, I won't quiz you when I see you at City Market...

 

5 comments:

  1. High, it's great hearing things are becoming more and more normal.
    Félicitations à Nicolas pour ses progrès si rapides. Et merci à Kim de nous tenir au courant. Keep going on.
    Et merci aussi de nous expliquer toute la technique post opératoire. Quel dommage qu'on ne puisse pas réactiver le nerf optique comme on le fait pour les mouvements oculaires!

    Lots of kisses from France.

    Françoise

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  2. ♡ very happy that you continue your blog.. Tack så mycket.. ;o) Love to read about you.. one day you should write you memories..♥ B'nana

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  3. So, how were Nick's feelings for that first fly ? Did he have the impression to find again all his good reflexes ? We would like to have his impressions and to know how that was for him.
    We will certainly go on reading your blog, it's the best way I've found to practice my English and to make grammatical experiments, and we won't leave you until we feel that Nick is perfectly healed, and we may think that two months are not enough to get healed from such an accident, although he doesn't think alike.
    On vous embrasse
    Corinne

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  4. He cousin,
    Hope you don't mind I also will stay reading your blogs.... you have an interesting way of telling what's going on! So keep up the good work and we here in Holland are also very happy and grateful that your lives are "back" to normal....
    Love,
    Caroline

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  5. Delighted to hear Nick is making such amazing progress - can't believe he's already flying again! I'll certainly keep reading your blog - it's very interesting and you write extremely well. A little too descriptive at times for the more squeamish amongst us, mind, but hey...

    All the best - Angie x

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