Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

by David Heiller “D id you get a good cornea?” I asked Dr. Skorich. I was lying in the pre-operational room at Miller Dwan Medical Center on Wednesday morning, February 28. Dr. Daniel Skorich answered that yes, the numbers looked good. “It came from Florida,” he said. David in pirate-mode on his banjo. He had three cornea transplants.  (One didn't do so well.)   Each one was a time of gratitude and hopefulness. “So you’re going to have a sunny disposition,” the anesthetist joked as he wheeled me into the operating room. By this time I had a very sunny outlook on life. It had a lot to do with whatever it was he had injected into my intravenous tube. I didn’t have a care in the world. I wasn’t worried at all about having my old cornea cut off and a new one—from Florida!—sewn on. That’s what happened over the next hour. I could see out of my left eye, which was draped with a cloth. My right eye was open, but I couldn’t see out of it. That was the result ...