Eye Operation

My parents and the doctor decided that it was time to operate on my eyes. They were looking in different directions and had been a source of problems with bullying. I was six years old. Frankly I can understand how funny I must have looked.


My dad  had been a young lawyer in the firm, which is now called Axley Brynelson. He wanted to become a partner, but the partners turned him down. So he decided to go back to Eau Claire to open his own law office with his brother Duane. The operation needed to be done before we left Madison.


I went into hospital on the day of the operation. I had a bed in a room with many other children. The bed was more of a large crib than a bed. I remember waking up in the middle of the night after the surgery. Both eyes were bandaged, but I could see through the cracks, so I crawled over the bars and went wandering down the hall. Needless to say the nurses were horrified to see me out and about and promptly put me back in bed. The next morning the doctor came in and changed the bandages. This time, he made sure there were no cracks.


I didn't mind being blind. I used to play with all the toys toddlers play with, for example the one where the big square with the hole in the middle goes on the bottom and the blocks gets smaller as they go higher. I was able to feel the size and weight of each square. So I thought it was kind of cool to see with my hands. After two weeks the bandages came off and I went home. But I enjoyed those days as a new adventure.