7-29-98

Dear Family and Friends

Tonite I am back from Los Angeles, after a long and exciting day. The long and the short of it is this: By the end of August, one way or t’other, I will have one new bionic eye (but no zoom capabilities). I was checked and rechecked, depth tested by sonar and managed to meet the general protocol for the fda test enough to be submitted to the list to see if I make the list of the next sixty worst eyes in America. It seems I do. If that doesnt work, I can opt for clear lens extractions, basically cataract surgery without the benefit of a cataract. But the important thing is this:

They actually CAN do something to make me see. And I will be scheduling for surgery by next Monday for sometime in August, although I am not yet sure of the date. I only need to stay in LA two or three days, and come back as necessary. Recovery is quick, virtually painless, and the risks well worth taking. I have tried to not allow myself to get too far off the edge for fear it might not work out, but I have gone over now for sure.

I will write tomorrow about all that transpired, but wanted to share with you the rapture, for that is what I feel, I believe. As I was leaving the doctors office, I was filled with the words of ee cummings, a favorite poet of my youth, and these words filled me, so I share them with you – these words which begin to capture the ecstasy I feel.
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e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

———————-
love

Susan