Transferring Memebership

nancyhawthorne | Adventures | Sunday, 28 December 2008

Today I joined Bellevue United Methodist Church.  I was really nervous.  I shared these feelings with my mom, who is in town for Christmas, and she encouraged me that I shouldn’t be nervous because everything would go fine.  I wasn’t nervous about the formalities of transferring my membership from First United Methodist Church in Lakeland, FL to Bellevue UMC, just outside of Nashville.  I am nervous because this is the first “official” step in an extremely long journey for me.

I want to be ordained as a Deacon in the United Methodist Church.  The candidacy process is quite involved with many hoops to jump through that is initiated by your home church pastor.  Before today, my home church was in Lakeland, FL, transferring my membership would mean that I could be ordained in the TN conference and I’ll be able to jump through all the hoops in the area in which I am living, serving, and growing.

I am also applying to Vanderbilt for Divinity School.  I am praying that as I trust God in the little things of my life, the big things will align as well… So, I guess my mom is right, I have nothing to be nervous about.

Question:

nancyhawthorne | Thoughts about Life | Friday, 26 December 2008

What does it mean to be an individual of privilege, in a society of privilege, in a world of social injustice?

Unrelistic Expectations of Lasik Surgery

nancyhawthorne | Me Rant RANT! | Thursday, 18 December 2008

I read my last post and laugh… then I want to cry.  I’m done crying about it, even though the moisture is good for my eyes.  I am wearing contacts right now and I can still barely see to drive after 7:00pm.

I didn’t actually have Lasik, I had a surgery called PRK.  The difference is the beginning steps, instead of cutting a flap in your eye they take of the top layer of cells that will quickly grow back.  It’s a bit more painful, but my doctor said it was better for my eyes.

I healed wonderfully from the PRK surgery, it’s just that the correction part of the surgery didn’t take so well.  The morning is the best and I can see without contacts to drive on my way to work.  It’s not 20/20 but it’s good enough.  As the day goes on my eye sight gets worse and worse.  For the first week I was petrified to drive home, but now I think it’s over-rated to see when you drive.  My contact prescription is 1.5 in my left eye and 1.25 in my right, but that was taken at 12:00pm and by the time 7:00pm rolls around, lights that were once the size of apples have become bales of hay.

I know that eventually, as months go by, I will be able to see better and 6 months from now I can have “enhancement” surgery.  However, I am disappointed.  My expectations were so high and now after thousands of dollars, I am putting dry eye prescription in my eyes and wearing contacts.

If you are thinking, this is why I have never had Lasik surgery.  Don’t kid yourself, you haven’t had the surgery because you don’t want to spend the money, haven’t found a doctor, don’t have a high enough prescription to make it worth while, or the audacity to do elective surgery… your issues have very little to do with my sob story.

The (Legally) Blind will See!

nancyhawthorne | Adventures | Thursday, 04 December 2008

Tomorrow I will experience a miracle, I am getting bladeless lasik surgery and will have 20/20 vision without contacts or glasses!

Do you remember in elementary school when they would line you up in the cafeteria or library for a vision and ear test?  Until the fifth grade, I would stand in line and memorize the eye chart.  The line would always swing around close enough to catch a glimpse of the last 3 rows, so that when it came time to cover one eye, I would pass my sight test with flying colors!  Like all good teacher’s pets, I sat in the front of the room so there was never a problem reading the board.

I lived my childhood never really seeing leaf definition in the trees or being able to recognize people from far away… I DIDN’T CARE, because I didn’t have to be a dork in glasses.

Somehow in middle school, I was assigned to a mid to back row and could no longer function in class without seeing the board.  I remember going to the optometrist and getting my eyes tested, hoping with all my might that somehow, just by visiting the eye doctor, I would be fixed and not have to wear glasses.  Before I went in to be tested, mom helped me pick out a few pairs that looked “nice.”  When the doctor wrote my prescription for glasses I freaked.  Tears streamed from my eyes that immediately became red and puffy!  In that moment, it didn’t matter what the glasses looked like, I knew it would be terrible no matter what, so I ended up with huge, ugly circle glasses that tented in the sun and didn’t change back when I came inside for at least 5 minutes.  They were terrible.

Luckily, when I entered 7th grade mom let me wear contacts!  They couldn’t be colored because she loves my baby poop, yellow, brown, green eyes, but I didn’t care because I got rid of the retched things!

I have worn contacts ever since and have only slept in them about 2 nights in my whole life.  Disposable, pieces of plastic rubbing my cornea day after day and the insertion, removal and care was always something that merited the greatest care.  I am amazed by contacts and thankful for their invention, but eventually it got to be too much, my eyes would protest every second of it, until months ago when I became a full time glasses wearer.

Tomorrow I will experience a miracle!!  I will be able to see 20/20 without glasses or contacts!  It will be one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.

With my new improved eyes, here is a list of things I hope I NEVER take for granted:

To wake up and see the time on my alarm clock from ½ way across the room.
To play the piano in my glasses and see my fingers out of my peripheral, heck, to have peripheral vision!
To shave my legs in the shower and not miss a HUGE patch of hair because I can’t see it.
To never be frustrated when I can’t tell the difference between 1 and 2 at the optometrist.
To watch a movie without having to lick my finger and stick it in my eye to unstuck my contact.
The fact that my eyes will not look like tiny beads behind my glasses.
To never feel on every surface to find my glasses, or get frustrated and ask someone else to find them, just so I can see enough to do a menial morning or night time task.
To sweat without my glasses falling down my face and get rid of the constant acne around the bridge of my nose.
To never worry about the corneal thickness, curvature, and surface regularity or feel the effects.
To perform without being able to see people face’s because my contact is dry or out of focus.
To lay in bed and see the white dots on the roof and for shadows to have definition in the dark.

But alas, I have taken for granted my ability see at all, my whole life, and will probably take this miracle for granted too.  HOWEVER, tonight the prideful little girl who squinted her whole childhood and the grown girl obsessed with quality and  efficiency will be thankful and rejoice for the legally blind will see!