Eyesight to the Blind
Posted on 25 Jan 2015 @ 8:33pm by
1,276 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
M13-A: From the Old to the New
Location: Heidelberg University Hospital - Recovery Ward
Cammy awoke to complete and total darkness. She could feel herself laying on a bed, and the general buzz of activity suggested she was in some form of medical facility. Bandages covered her head and eyes, and she felt a general numbness suggesting a painkiller hypospray. Slowly, she raised a shaky hand up to the bandages around her groggy head and started pulling at them.
“Easy now,” A gentle male voice admonished. “Why don’t we leave those where they are for a while?”
“Wha happen’d?” she slurred, her hand dropping back to her side.
“You were in a car accident. You hit some debris on the road that blew your tire. The car jerked off the road and rolled over.”
His account caused a drug addled neuron to fire up. “Steve!” she shot up
The man placed a hand on her shoulder “He’ll fine. The doctors are working on him right now. Just take it easy.”
The sudden exertion caused a surge of lightheadedness, and Cammy felt herself falling backwards at the man’s gentle push. He placed a hand on her back to ease her descent. “There you go; just lie back.”
“When can I get these bandages off?” The brief, painful silence after she asked that question suggested she asked a question he was hoping she wouldn’t.
“There is something you should know,” he finally said. “When the car flipped, the windshield shattered, and a good deal of glass embedded itself in your face and eyes. We were able to remove the pieces from your face and heal up the scars except for one on your left cheek.”
Cammy instinctively reached up to feel the side of her face. A narrow strip of scar tissue ran from just below her cheekbone down to her jaw. Somehow she felt that was the least of her worries.
“Unfortunately, your eyes were beyond saving.” He said flatly.
She tried to swallow a lump in her throat. The news had a sobering effect on her dulled senses “What are you saying? I’m blind?”
“For now, yes,” He consoled. “We’re prepping an operating room to put in ocular implants right now. You’ll be able to see again, but there will be some growing pains. Ocular implants function more like the VISOR than natural eyes. You’ll have to learn how to see in the EM spectrum.”
Cammy let out a defeated sigh. “So I won’t be blind but I might as well be?”
He patted her arm. “Don’t worry. Lots of people learn to use them, and you will too.”
She heard another, younger voice. “Doctor, we’re ready.”
[Recovery Ward D)
Lisa burst into the recovery ward, her heart pounding. She was looking through the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History when someone was finally able to get word to her. The blonde spotted an orderly and trotted towards him. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Cammy Valentine. She was in a car accident and I heard she’s having implant surgery for her eyes.”
“One second,” the young Trill said, checking his PADD. He skimmed over a list of names, before turning back towards her. “It says she’s out of surgery and recovering.”
“I need to see her. What room is she in?”
“I’m sorry ma’am, patients are not to be disturbed while in recovery.” He held up a hand. “Please take a seat and we’ll call you when she goes in for post op consultation.”
“You don’t understand! I need to see her!” Lisa protested.
“I’m sorry ma’am: no exceptions.”
“But…”
“You’ll have to wait over here,” he said, guiding her towards the door. “Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be too long.”
[Hospital Room 305]
Cammy’s hand slowly reached up to her left temple a pressed a sub dermal sensor. The inescapable darkness that dominated her vision was replaced with a blurry azure mess of visual stimuli. She could see a general silhouette of the room and its contents, but it was like looking through a fine mesh: nothing stood out enough for her to recongnize. The influx of strange visual input was downright overwhelming, and Cammy could feel her stomach beginning to churn.
The doctor set a plastic tub in her lap. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? Don’t worry, most people get nauseous when they first activate the implants.”
Lisa patted Cammy’s back. “How long does it take for people to adjust?”
“That’s up to the person. It all comes down to how fast your brain can relearn how to see.”
Cammy bent down and dry heaved into the tub for a few seconds before sitting back up. “Ugh. Why all this EM stuff? Why can’t I have some kind of video feed that’s more like normal vision?”
“Well, the simple answer is that video and eyesight work differently. The way recording devices process visual information is different from how the eyes and brain do. We simply haven’t been able to integrate them yet.”
“So I’m stuck with robot vision?”
“For now,” he said with a chuckle. “There are a lot of advantages to these implants though; especially for Starfleet officers. You can use thermal imagining, they have limited telescoping abilities, and seeing in the EM spectrum truly offers a more complete picture of the environment.”
“You sound like their biggest fan.”
“It’s not so bad once you get used to them,” he scratched his chin. “Now, touch your right temple.”
She complied, and the blue mess was replaced with the rainbow world of thermal imagining. She squinted reflexively to the bright colors, to no avail. “Well, at least I tell what I’m looking at now.”
“It’s a little closer to natural eyesight, so you may want to use it in cases where you need to see finer details. At least when temperature allows. Don’t overuse it though. The bright colors can strain parts of your brain if you use it too much.”
Cammy tapped her right temple again. The psychedelic world faded back to the dull blue of her default vision. She closed her eyes and began to sign in resignation, but yelped as parts of the room remained visible through her eyelids. She closed them again. “What the…”
The doctor smiled. “Unfortunately, your eyelids don’t completely block EM radiation. Whenever you sleep, you’ll have to manually shut them off using that switch in your head.”
Cammy tapped her temple again, and the electric blue orbs faded to a stone grey. She could feel a strange tension in her head ease as she once again stared at complete darkness. “That feels better.”
“You will experience headaches as your brain adjusts.” The doctor said, entering something into his PADD. “Even then, you’ll still get occasional headaches. Just shut them off for a few minutes until it passes.”
“Anything else we should know, Doctor?” Lisa asked
“I’m entering in a physical therapy recommendation for your ship’s medical staff. They’ll have some exercises you can do to help you adjust to your new sight, and monitor your progress. Make sure you follow their directions. It’s for your own good.”
The two made their way out of the hospital, Cammy stumbling every so often and relying on Lisa to guide her around a few people that didn’t stand out in EM vision. After that short walk, Cammy could tell it was going to be a long road to recovery.
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Ens Cammy Valentine
Infiltration Specialist
USS Achilles
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