Previously on this cheerful little blog of bodily malfunctions and administrative sadism, we left off with me circling the runway like a doomed commercial flight whose pilot is just a clipboard with teeth. All my medical appointments—all of them—were scheduled for February or March, which is the healthcare system’s way of saying: “We acknowledge your suffering and would like to schedule it for later.”
Am I the only one who sees the need for speed? Because apparently the rest of the world is content with a timeline that moves like a constipated sloth dragging a mattress uphill.
Day 8 of the New Year
The calendar flips and I’m summoned to the service that’s going to provide me with a glass eye.
Now, let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t some classy pirate marble with a sinister glint. No, it’s more like a giant contact lens shell painted to look like an eyeball, because we live in the future and the future is mostly adhesives.
The place—Ocular Prosthetic Designs—is this strange hybrid of medical office and art studio, like if a surgeon and a tattoo artist got trapped in an elevator and decided to start a business. Turns out these things are hand-painted and custom-fitted, which sounds charming until you remember it’s for your face.
First order of business: unsealing the meatsuit
My eyelids were still sewn shut with those “self-dissolving” sutures that… apparently never got the memo about dissolving. They were just sitting there like lazy renters refusing to move out.
So the guy snips them, and instant relief—like a curse being lifted, or a Netflix subscription finally cancelled.
And here’s the fun part: turns out my surgeon had implanted a clear shell in there already, like an eyeball training bra, so my eye socket wouldn’t collapse into a sad little cave of regrets. Not a fancy painted piece—just a clear placeholder.
Clear or not, I still couldn’t see a damn thing, so no surprises there. Just the usual void.
Arts & crafts, but make it horrifying
They took a mold—because nothing says “healthcare” like someone making a silicone impression of your face-hole—and told me we’ll meet again in a week to check the tint and fit.
So I might have a finished eye shortly.
Until then, I’ll keep an eye out for you.
Yes, I said it. I earned it.
In and out — pretty simple
It was quick. Efficient. Almost too normal. In fact, I got first-hand experience with the prosthetic when I popped the shell out while rubbing my eye in his office like a drunken raccoon grooming itself.
So right there, in front of the professional, I got hands-on training re-inserting it—like a live demo of “How Not to Be Your Own Worst Enemy.”
Promised to be careful.
Because yeah… I need to be careful.
I made it about eight blocks
Eight blocks. That’s how long my vow lasted. Like New Year’s resolutions and monogamy.
I popped the thing out again.
But only once since then.
So basically I’m crushing it.
HEB: Depth Perception Hell
I parked at HEB and picked up groceries like a normal citizen pretending this is all fine. When I came out, the depth perception problem struck again like a sniper.
I was only halfway into the parking spot. The whole ass end of the truck was sticking out in traffic like I was trying to launch a hostile takeover of the lane.
Daily challenges—keeping me sharp.
Or at least keeping me aware that I’m not sharp anymore.
Then: the oncology consult
In a semi-miracle, they bumped my oncology consult to 9:00 AM tomorrow, instead of February 5th. Which, naturally, was immediately changed to noon, because hospitals can smell hope like blood in the water.
But hey—still the same day.
Small victories. Tiny crumbs of competence sprinkled across the asphalt of despair.
So tomorrow, I trek once again into Temple to face the rat bastard Charlie (my personal internal villain—some malignant chaos entity wearing a lab coat), and whatever havoc he’s planning to wreck upon my frail and aged carcass.
BUT HERE’S THE REAL TRAGEDY
The true fear isn’t Charlie.
It’s missing my fiber install.
Because listen: I have spent years crawling out of the internet swamp like a mud-covered lunatic with a modem in his teeth.
- Started with two DSL lines at 5 Mbps
- Upgraded to satellite at a blistering 10 Mbps, when the wind wasn’t laughing
- Graduated to Starlink averaging 75 Mbps, but unstable like a raccoon on espresso
- Now I’m on wireless point-to-point at a stable 50 Mbps
- And fiber… sweet divine fiber… offers 500 to 1,000 Mbps
That’s not just speed. That’s ascension.
That’s leaving the cave. That’s fire. That’s Prometheus stealing bandwidth.
Info power.
I feel like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit—except instead of getting struck by lightning, I got struck by a medical billing department.
Need info. Need data. Need bandwidth. Need the river of knowledge poured directly into my brain.
So yeah, tomorrow I’m fighting cancer bureaucracy with one hand and trying to keep my fiber appointment alive with the other like I’m juggling two live grenades and one of them is made of emails.
Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler
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