Seeing from pinnacle of rockbottom times

This column almost didn’t get written. I pride myself on being the Cal Ripken of Western journalism, not having missed one deadline for 167 consecutive Wednesdays. What I lack in quality, I make up for in consistency.

I get this from my husband, Brian, who hasn’t missed a performance in almost four decades as a professional dancer. I’ve watched him pirouette on a broken foot. Back in the mid1980s, however, just a few years into our illegal marriage, he did take a break from dancing. He took a job off Broadway, with Playwrights Horizons, in the costume department.

At this time, the shop was busy working on period piece outfits for such shows as “Sunday in the Park With George,” “Driving Miss Daisy” and “The Heidi Chronicles.” (Imagine sewing a bustle that Bernadette Peters could step out of onstage.) Brian sewed for two women, and he did a lot of the handstitching and pressing. But invariably they would come to opening night, Morgan Freeman’s chauffeur cap not fitting, and Ginny would say, “We have reached the zenith of our nadir.”

Brian and I came to embrace the expression. To us, it meant, “This is the absolute worst part of the worst part.” But it was also hopeful because, well, things couldn’t get any worse.

We’ve had a lot of zeniths in our almost 35year relationship: The night the dining room in the blue bungalow in the outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior went up in flames, we stood in the ashes, mopping water up off the floor, Brian looked at me and nodded, “Yes, the zenith of our nadir.”

The afternoon we lost the triplets. The morning that Tim died of AIDS. The day that Zane went away. Every disaster has an ending. Cataract comes from the Latin word

cataracta, which means “waterfall,” which in turn comes from the Greek word katarosso, or to crash down. Early Persian physicians thought that these obstructions of the eyes were caused by too much flowing through the eyes, or as I see it, too many tears.

When the doctor diagnosed me, I was all set to make this into Greek tragedy. But not the husband. “They have operations for that. This is like an oil change,” he said, “In and out in an hour.”

We told Aidan that night, and he asked how serious this was. Brian said, “Oh, they’ve been doing this kind of surgery for decades now.” So I looked it up. The first known cataract surgery was in 1748, by a French physician named Jacques Daviel.

Of course, nothing’s routine for the FisherPaulsons. Turns out my corneas are also damaged, so even the doctor said, “I have no idea what the outcome will be.”

Last Tuesday, I checked in to the eye surgery place on Post Street, and tried to act all calm signing off forms that would let a doctor slice my eyeball open with a laser. A nice nurse named Mary Ann checked me in, and even though she claimed to be Catholic, she had no idea who St. Lucy was so I figured I was on my own.

There were eight other people getting cataract surgery at the time, and what with just lying there in a bed, I had nothing to do but listen to their nurses ask if they were ready for the surgery. But here comes the best part: They asked each their height and weight, and it turns out that, yes, I was the fattest person in the building. When I weighed in at 181, the guy in the bed next to me said, “Wish I could borrow some of yours. They do the anesthesia according to how many pounds you are.”

Thanks to my relative immensity, I remember almost nothing of what happened after that. Brian picked me up, my Seeing Eye dancer for the week.

The left side of my face bandaged up, I went home and slept. When I awoke, Brian told me all the restrictions the doctor had prescribed: I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t lift heavy weights, I couldn’t drink, I couldn’t complain about his driving.

The bandages were too thick for me to put on my glasses, so I couldn’t watch television, I couldn’t read with my remaining eye, I couldn’t type. So there I was, with my itchy eyeball covered over with nothing to do. Then I looked at Brian with my one semiworking eye, and he nodded. The zenith of this particular nadir. Life would get better after this.

Until of course, next Tuesday, when we do the other eye.

Thanks to my relative immensity, I remember almost nothing of what happened after that.