I’m a believer of the “vomit draft.” Meaning, when writing a first draft, you write down everything that comes to mind. Future drafts are about cutting, condensing and deciding on and strengthening your “thesis.”
So, after the first draft of SUB-LEBRITY, I realized my book was the mostly comic tale of an out-and-loud gay actor from Indiana now living and working in Los Angeles. If a story wasn’t about being gay, being an actor, or being a gay actor, out it came. There was no room for family dramas or medical traumas.
But here’s a chapter which I cut from my book, all about my scariest “medical emergency.”
A Twisted Vein
I had somehow arrived at middle-age without ever breaking a bone, having surgery, or even spending a night as a patient in a hospital.
Pretty good, huh? Especially considering my childhood was filled with jumping off barns, riding horses and mini-motorbikes, and farm work!
But that’s not to say my life has been free of scary medical-show drama.
Around 2003, I began to notice, while reading, that text was becoming a little blurry. I attributed it to my age (40 at the time), and mentally made a note to buy some reading glasses.
I also noticed colors on TV became muted when I closed my left eye. Again, I assumed it was just a case of aging eyes.
Then one day, as I was walking to work in San Francisco’s Financial District, I looked up at a high-rise building.
Is that building bulging? I wondered.
I closed my left eye. The building did, indeed, appear to have a small bulge -- one or two floors warping outwards.
How is that possible?
I quickly made an appointment with my regular eye doctor, a wonderful woman named Dr. Christine Brischer.
As we sat down, I explained to her what I was experiencing. She looked into my left eye, then my right, with her lighted pen. Then, without a word to me, she spun around in her chair, picked up the phone, and called a leading ophthalmologist.
“Hi, its Christine. I have a patient who needs to see you immediately. Can he come this afternoon? Good.” The seriousness of her tone shook me to the bone.
She hung up, and spun around to face me.
“I hope you have good insurance,” she said cryptically. “This is going to be expensive.”
I left her office in a daze, and immediately called Laurence. He left work early and joined me at the ophthalmologist’s office.
After a thorough and grueling examination, the specialist explained to use what was going on.
A small artery behind the center of my right retina had sprung a leak. The blood that was spilling out was pushing the retina forward, thus causing vision in that eye to appear warped.
The ophthalmologist conferred with his team. They suggested urgency. Considering the leak was located directly in the center of my eye, they recommended the “big guns” -- a “hot” laser eye surgery. It would leave me with a permanent blind spot in the middle of my right eye, but the heat from the laser might -- just might -- seal up the leaky vein. We agreed.
My head was strapped into a chair. I was warned against moving in the slightest for the 60 seconds the laser was shooting into my eye, as the laser would burn (and blind) anything it touched.
The terrifying procedure began, and the entire time, I wondered What if I have to sneeze? What if there’s an earthquake? What if I fart?
I didn’t, there wasn’t, and I didn’t.
I was appearing in the play Worse Than Chocolate at the time, and assured director Jeffrey I’d recover sufficiently in time to return to the show following the mid-week break in performances. And I did, despite incredibly distracting “halos” that stage lighting caused in my recovering eye.[1]
That weekend, during a performance, as I’m “firing” Jaeson Post and demanding the office key from him, he dropped it as he handed it to me. I looked down. With my impaired vision, the brass-colored metal key vanished against the similarly colored wooded floor.
I looked at Jaeson. Rightfully remaining in character, he refused to pick it up.
I got on my hands and knees and felt for the keys with my hands, like a young, manic Patty Duke-as-Helen Keller. The audience actually loved it, loved seeing the heavy of the show (me) reduced to crawling on his hands and knees after being such a prick, but it was a very scary moment which I think I played off.
We returned to the doctor for a follow-up a week later. We were both disappointed when told the vein was still leaking. So now, I had warped vision plus the blind spot right in the center of my eye. I began to question the wisdom of using the “big guns” right away.
The doctor suggested we try the hot laser again. But one blind spot is enough, thank you very much. So, we opted for the less-powerful option: inject me full of photo-topical chemicals, and shoot a “cold” laser into my eye, through the retina, at the leak. Then hide from direct sunlight for the next three days (not so easy to do in Los Angeles), as the chemicals would leave me susceptible to serious sunburn within minutes.
That didn’t stop the leak either. So, we tried it again. Then again.
After seven more expensive cold laser surgeries over 18 months, the leak was finally catheterized.
What caused the vein to pop a leak in the first place?
That question left the various eye professionals stymied. Until over a year later, when we consulted with a vision specialist on the campus of UCSF.
“Did you grow up on a farm?” he asked within moments.
“Why, yes, I did, why?”
“Histoplasmosis,” he answered, explaining the infection – caused by inhaling dried bird droppings – is common in people who live(d) on midwestern farms. Most people carry it without ever developing symptoms. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did spend a few months as a kid raising chickens and selling the eggs to neighbors and family members. And I remembered, Mom had battled the same thing when I was a young kid -- in her case, it attacked the veins in her legs, putting her in a wheelchair for a week or two.
Then again, it may be the kicked-up piles of dried pigeon shit I inhaled while shooting OUT’s climatic mugging scene in that disgusting San Francisco Tenderloin back alley.
Over the years, my blind spot from that hot laser has continued to expand, basically leaving me effectively blind in the center of my right eye. If I live long enough, the slowly expanding blind spot will eventually leave me legally blind in that eye.
I’ve gotten used to it. The human eye is an amazing thing, and fills in blind spots with the colors surrounding it. I only really feel impaired when taking a conventional vision test, while watching a 3D movie, or if I’m driving in an unfamiliar part of town after dark.
The plus side? I have to subject myself to rigorous eye tests every six months to ensure the leak doesn’t reopen. Since most of the patients of my ophthalmologist are elderly men and women battling macular degeneration, every time I show up for an appointment, I enjoy the very rare sensation of being the young person in the room -- a feat I rarely accomplish in LA!
Or anywhere else these days, now that I think about it...
[1] I should’ve worn the eye patch I’d been sporting after the surgery on stage, but critics already felt my villain was a little too over-the-top!
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