Love and First Sight by Josh Sundquist

Author:Josh Sundquist
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2017-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

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That night, I barely sleep. When I do, I dream about Cecily. I can see her, and it’s very strange because I’m not actually seeing. Still, this one feels different from my usual dreams, which are just hallucinated representations of my everyday experience, loosely chronological narratives of touch, sound, and smell.

Dad takes the day off so he and Mom can accompany me to the hospital. Which must suck for him, using a vacation day to go hang out at his place of work.

The three of us sit in a waiting room for a while. Mom fills out my paperwork. I wonder what it will be like when I can fill out my own paperwork. I hear Dad shuffling through the newspaper. I imagine how it will feel to read with my eyes. I run my fingers over the upholstery of my chair and wonder what color it is. Sure, I could ask Mom. Or I could use my iPhone app that identifies colors. But that’s not the point. I don’t actually care what color the chair is. I just want to be able to determine it at a glance. Like a normal person.

We are called into another room and go through the same pre-op conversations as we did six weeks ago for the stem cell operation. The anesthesiologist asks me a million times if I’m allergic to anything. He knows Dad, and they exchange pleasantries. Dr. Bianchi comes by for a final check-in. He says he is hopeful the operation will succeed, but he reminds me that “we cannot predict outcomes with certainty.” The stem cells have been in my eyes long enough now to have created daughter cells, which will hopefully get my retinas to function. The stem cells are like a foundation, he says, and the corneas are like the house. Assuming my body doesn’t immediately reject the new corneas, it’s possible I might be able to sense light as soon as he takes the bandages off after this operation.

The anesthesiologist puts an IV in my arm. He tells me things are going to get blurry. I start to remind him that I won’t know the difference, but I’m fast fading into sleep and the words get stuck in my throat.

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