Confidence and Smile: A 17-Year-Old Teenager Has Stepped Out the Haze of High Myopia
Origin: United States
My first meeting with Xiaowu was one month before he was hospitalized. Wearing such an exaggerated pair of thick glasses with circles of waviness, he looked like stepping out from a comic book. Emotion in his eyes was invisible because of the tiny lens, and he didn’t answer any question when he admitted to our hospital. I thought he must be an uncommunicative child.
Xiaowu had severe ptosis, and the droopy upper eyelid covered mostly eye, so his impression to me was lifeless and listless. It was the second day after his operation that we met again. A ptosis corrective operation was conducted by Professor Kang Qian, which had opened the canthus as well as pulled the upper eyelid, so his eyes became twice bigger. He looked much more spiritual still under this silent looking.
before operation after operation
However, Xiaowu’s mother was still anxious. It was obvious she cared for her son, but she had not got any better method other than urging again and again that was just like scold. She took me out of the ward and told me in anxiety that the patient in Xiaowu’s neighbor sickbed also got the high myopia, and that he got a complication of cataract at the young age, so she worried if Xiaowu would be in the case, since Xiaowu cannot see clearly even with that thick glasses at the present. I couldn’t say any comforting words. What I could tell her was the high myopia can be corrected by operations, although she knew it since the doctor had told her.
Later on, she told me about her family, complaining about Xiaowu’s high myopia of 1800 degree and Xiaowu’s father’s reluctance to want just one eye operation. After one hour probably, she said to me determinatively that she would have the operation done for her son for both eyes. I saw her stepping into the ward and heard her rebuke to Xiaowu, however, I felt very warm.
One day later, I saw Xiaowu again in the special examine room when he was alone waiting for the preoperative examination of ICL myopia operation. I thought that he might be bored, and tried to talk to him. The situation was not so bad, at least he reacted to my words with nodding, shaking, or making “hum” lightly. After a silent moment, a nurse came to bring him to have the examination.
I walked out of the special examination room and saw Xiaowu’s mother who was waiting at the door all the time. After the examination was finished, I went upstairs with them and heard them arguing for some trifles. It was just his protection method to be silent and obedient in front of strangers, and the truth was he was not confident to express his ideas.
I went to see Xiaowu again as I wanted to know more his conditions, but the resident doctor told me that he had left the hospital without having the ICL operation done. Vice-director Lian Hao was the surgeon of Xiaowu’s ICL operation, well known for his demanding requirements forof operations. Considering the economic condition of Xiaowu’s family, he suggested Xiaowu to leave the hospital until the most suitable lens was available.
Xiaowu admitted to the hospital once again for the ICL operation. I met him when the operation on his right eye had been done, and he told me delightfully that his right eye could see things very clearly. He said he couldn't remember me, but he could have happy conversation with such a “stranger".
“Very clear, from this eye” he pointed to his right eye whose appearance had been completely recovered from the operation, “I don’t feel any inadaptation, nothing.” Then he laughed happily. After some chatting, I told him that I thought he was introverted, he laughed after telling me, “I like smiling very much, and I am not introverted at all for I am very talkative when I am together with my friends. In the past, I believed everyone would laugh at me because of my small eyes wearing thick glasses”. As what he said, he laughed a lot during our meeting after the operation for his left eye had been done, which was completely different from the condition in his first hospitalization. Since Xiaowu’s mother was also there, a nurse came in to say some precautions. She responded to every sentence cheerfully, which was her special way of showing her thanks.
Nowadays, operations for Xiaowu’s both eyes have been done. “I can see the fourth row (5.0) counting from the bottom easily.” Xiaowu told me happily as he was tidying his bed. Professor Lian Hao introduced that ICL lens implanting operation targets on the high myopia patients. The ICL lens is implanted into eyes without extirpating own lens and destroying relevant organization structure, and the result is as direct as wearing a contact lens, and the operation is reversible. The difference is the “contact lens” is worn inside eyes, which will not hurt the cornea; instead, its special material can help to isolate harmful light.
