The Search for Spot, Part 2

First of all, sorry to have been gone these long three weeks. I have been moving and settling into a new apartment and, in some ways, a new (awesome) life. More on that soon.

Also, welcome to my fellow Stargardt's victim, who commented on the last entry - and thanks for the referral to my fellow blind-ish blogger, Rich, at The Perfect Focus.

OK... on to the next part of my visit to the experts.

Part 2: Bright Lights

When I first started working on theater projects, I probably had the idea at some point that I would be in the spotlight... that everyone's eyes would be on me. Is it so far off to have a whole bunch of bright lights flashing on my eyes?

Yes, as anyone with a vision impairment knows, ophthalmologists love to do things that make you want to blink, but they require that you don't blink. And I fully expected that to be the case at the experts.

The first thing they asked me to do, they explained, was not required for the study but would be helpful to them. It would take about two hours.

"Sure," I said, "why not?" I mean, I was hoping to catch a train to Philadelphia at some point that night, but ti didn't really matter when.

This was the point at which they started to put wires around my face.

First, they wiped my ears with an alcoholic solution, then attached clips. Then, they wiped my forehead with a solution and tried several times to stick something to it. When it didn't hold, they used tape. (I had a zit for about a week after that, and I'm pretty sure it was from a researcher's thumb.) The wires came next.

With a wire running straight across my bottom eyelids, I asked them if it was all right that I was very uncomfortable.

"Well, we could have used an anesthetic, but that would only last a few minutes, and then you'd blink more."

Fine. The discomfort was fading anyway.

"OK," the researcher said," now I have to leave you in the dark for 45 minutes." This was so that my eyes could acclimate. "Do you have a favorite radio station?"

"No iPod?" I begged.

"No, they give off too much light."

Reasonable enough. "OK, put on 93.9 FM."

That's WNYC, the local NPR station. As she flipped through the dial, I recognized it immediately.. It was my least favorite show - the special guest was a "cactus cabaret" singer from France - but it was mostly music that didn't offend me. All good.

So, for the next fifteen minutes or so, I sat still listening to French cactus cabaret in the dark. At one point, the researcher came back in with a red-light flashlight.

"I forgot to dilate your eyes," she unapologetically stated. "It's harder int eh dark." And, sure enough, she missed the second eye-drop and had to try again.

I still had another twenty-five minutes in the dark, during which the radio program ended.

The new one was RadioLab, one of my favorites. Hooray!

This episode was about parasites. Boo.

Worse yet, it started with a blow-by-blow description of Ridley Scott's Alien, one of the scariest films of all time. And I got to hear it recounted to me in the dark, complete with audio of the creepiest scenes. Lucky me.

By the time the researchers came back, I was basically numb to humanity. Which was a good thing, because that's when they turned on the machine and started flashing thousands of blinking bright lights at me, all the while instructing me to try not to blink.

The blinking bright lights went on for a while. I don't know how long. I had lost all sense of time.

"OK," said the researcher," good job."

Whew. It was over.

"Now I need you to just sit with your eyes facing this light for the next half-hour. To acclimate."

Right... well, in this case, at least I didn't have to sit all that still to keep my chin on a chin-rest.

"Ready?"

I faced the light.

"See you in half-an-hour."

"Um..." I started. But it was too late. She had turned off the radio, and I was left to face a bright light, in silence, for the next thirty minutes. That's when I started singing to myself.

And that's where we'll leave it until next time.