Blackbook

I
hereby formally declare myself unfit for any form of jungle warfare.

 
*****

I
was diagnosed with a very rare eye disorder during my second year in college.
It is called Keratoconus or just KC. If I remember correctly, the word “kerato”
means cornea and “conus” means cone. Put them together and you are supposed to
get “coning of the cornea.” The
irregular coning causes light to be refracted BEFORE it even reaches the lens (the
more usual problem area for people) inside the eyes. Blurring occurs.

 

No,
I’m not going to die because of it unless I fall into a deep dark hole, never
to be found again. It also does not cause blindness. KC just causes varying
levels of blurred vision. Things can be very blurry or the effect can just be
minimal. For some people, it is not that bad. They might have it and not even
notice unless they have an eye check up.

 

How
did I know I had KC? Back in college, there was this time when I had to replace
my contacts every few months because my eyesight was getting worse. I got suspicious.
During one eye examination with those high tech eye scanning devices, the
optometrist leaned back in her chair with a very puzzled look on her face. She
called another optometrist who also looked at the monitor in confusion. They
called another one. All three of them just stared at the monitor, perplexed.
Then they looked at me as if I I had cancer or something.

 

“Sir,
have you been involved in a vehicle accident recently? Did you get hit in the
head?” one of them asked.

 

Their
high tech machine was displaying errors in the screen.

 

Five
eye specialists and six weeks later, I was diagnosed with Keratoconus. How did
the doctor tell me? After peering into my eyes, he turned around and called
several interns over. “Gather around,” he ordered them. “Each of you take a
look at his cornea. The condition is called Keratoconus and you will probably
never see anything like it in your lifetime.”

 

 

*****

 

Doctors
have not yet agreed on what causes KC or what aggravates it. So for now, it’s
just one of those unfortunate things with no explanations.

.

There
is no cure for KC. It cannot be stopped. It can get worse or it might not. Laser
cannot treat it. However, there are certain “solutions.” One is wearing customized
contact lens which I already have. They are very uncomfortable to wear and does
not give 20-20 vision. They cost P2000 each. I rarely wear them. Unfortunately,
in some advanced cases, specially made contacts can no longer improve the
vision of the KC patient. The other solution is corneal transplant. Doctors
always leave it up to the patient to decide if he wants to have a transplant.
If the patient does not want to cope with blurred vision and special contacts,
then he can opt for a transplant.

 

Corneal
transplants have a 95% chance of success. Based on the newsletters I get from
the US-based National Keratoconus Foundation (bless their souls for sending it
all the way here for free every month), the meaning of “success” varies between
doctor and patient. For the doctors, an operation is successful when the body
does not reject the new cornea. Unfortunately, the transplant still requires
intensive maintenance and care. Sometimes, vision improves very little and the
patient wonders why in the world he even had the transplant.

 

*****

Anyway,
that’s enough background.

 

A
few weeks ago, a friend invited me to go with him and his officemates for some
live fire shooting using 9mm and .45 caliber pistols. Yup, real guns. And just
about unlimited-shoot-until-you-drop-ammunition.

 

Since
there were a lot of beginners with us, we started off at 5 meters then 10 then
15, firing one shot at a time. We then practiced “double-tapping” which is
firing two shots in rapid succession. One of the instructors was watching
behind me. He patted me on the shoulder and said I was doing really great.

 

I’m
a pretty good shot with real firearms, long and short. I had good “teachers”
since I was 7 years old. Some of them were expert marksmen from the elite Scout
Rangers. Still, I was happy to hear I was doing well. It’s been quite awhile
since I’ve been in the firing range.

 

The
instructors set up a simple “course” for us. One by one, we were supposed to
wait on one side of the firing range and at the signal, we were supposed to run
as fast as we can (with a loaded pistol!) and gun down three of the targets
along the way. Just like the action stars in the movies!

 

I
thought I did pretty good. I was right on target. Unfortunately, speed was
given more weight in scoring. It was better to NOT hit the bull’s eye and
finish the earliest than to hit the bull’s eye and finish second. And that’s
what happened, I got second place but it wasn’t bad. No one told me that speed
was first priority. Next time I’ll do some tumbling!

 

We
still had so much ammo left. Someone had the idea of shooting a plastic water
container cap at 10 meters. The first guy fired. Missed. My turn. I took a deep
breath as I raised the pistol, and exhaled slowly. I fired. A hole appeared on
the cap. Right on target! I wanted to bow as people applauded.

 

I
just wonder how my shooting would have been without KC? I could have been a
sniper shooting targets a kilometer away! Too bad. Now, I just have to make do with lots and lots of PC games
where I can shoot without squinting and getting a headache. Recently, I’ve also
avoided playing my weekly airsoft wargames. I find it frustrating finding
myself in the middle of a firefight in the jungle and having to ask repeatedly,
“Where are the shots coming from?!” when everyone else around me seem to be
firing at something in the distance.

 

I
will just have to focus now on CQB (close quarter battle) which involves
climbing over walls, rushing into heavily defended structures, and “clearing”
the rooms inside of the enemy. This also means you sometimes get shot from a
range of less than 10 feet. Not really a fun experience especially when the gun
shooting at you spits out pellets at 500 feet/sec. Oh well, war is hell. All I have to do now is look for another
gamesite and people willing to be shot at close range.

 

I
wish I can have 20-20 vision again.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2005 at 8:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.