In the beginning there was only pain.

I awoke on a strange bed, excruciating pain radiating from my bandaged eyes to my every extremity. I didn’t know eyes could feel this much pain!

“Just hold still, baby, the nurse is going to give you some painkillers.”

But I couldn’t stop thrashing in what I now realized was a hospital bed. I banged my arms against the cold guard-rails on either side of the bed, eager to free myself from this cage of suffering. I heard a cry that sounded like it was coming from an animal and realized, dimly, that the sound was coming from me. I felt my mother’s cool hands holding me down and then the pinprick of a needle. Then I felt nothing.

I fell asleep again.

I drifted in and out of consciousness for what felt like years, though they tell me now it was only months. Voices entered my dreams sometimes.

Will she be able to see again?

Too soon to tell…

Today the bandages came off. As the last layer was peeled away, I heard a voice I didn’t recognize say, “Open your eyes…”