Laughing can be great medicine

By Jeff Becraft

I had surgery on my left eye last week. My right eye is 100% healed now… and I am really thankful for that.

Now, after the surgery, my left eye is all wonky, which makes a lot of other things wonky… like walking.

Today, my wife took me to my follow up visit with my eye doctor. (And as I said a couple of weeks ago, all the doctors and nurses have been fantastic and it has been a great experience.) The first technician that was testing my eye today, had me look through my right eye first and apparently my right eye is now 20/20.

But then I flipped the pirate patch over and she says, “Tell me what you can read with your left eye.” I respond, “Well… I can tell there’s a white screen on the wall… That’s about what I can tell you… I can’t see a single letter.”

So, just like for the right eye, it will take a while for my left eye to heal. Apparently, the cataract was very dense, and according to my doctor, he had to use four times the amount of force and energy as compared to other patients yesterday to break up that cataract and get it out. (Kind of like using a laser jackhammer. I told him I had a dense head.)

As we are heading out the building, I am describing to Brenda what it is like to have one eye working and another only recognizing that there is at least a white screen on the wall. For those of you who wear glasses, it is kind of like when one lens pops out of the frame and you can see out of one side of the glasses but the other side is all blurry. It really throws you off. It is not quite as bad as that, but that is what it is like. Everything just feels out of balance.

I told Brenda, it reminded me of the first time I ever had glasses. At about 25-26 years old, Brenda and I had been married for only a little while, and I had just gotten glasses for distance. For my first time ever wearing them, we walked to a mall that was close to our apartment. In walking home, I go to step over a curb, and I am thinking, “Man, exactly where is that curb? I can’t quite get my perspective here.” I would think it was really far away, but then it was right there. It was just really weird and awkward.

I am describing this to Brenda as we are walking to the car and I have on the big Star Trek, 18-wheeler-windshield sunglasses that they give you, I said, “That’s what this kind of feels like.”

We are coming to a speed bump in the parking lot and I begin to act this out for her. In a very exaggerated way, a couple of feet before I even get to the speed bump, I am acting like I am having to step over some huge tree trunk that is lying on the ground. Getting over the speed bump, I have my foot about 12 inches off the ground, and I am groping around and waving my foot like, “Where is this speed bump?”

Brenda is laughing. At the same time, a car is pulling out of a parking space a few spaces down from us.

As we are walking to the car, Brenda starts laughing even harder, and she comments to me, “That car has no idea that you are out here telling a story.”

We both begin laughing to the point of tears and imagining what these people are thinking: “Look at this guy… poor guy… he’s trying to step over that speed bump… he looks like he’s trying to get up on a horse or something. And check this out… his wife is laughing at him.”

We laugh so hard in the car, I am sure the pressure was not good for my eye, but it was a joyous time.

We then drive to Trader Joe’s, because that is close to where my doctor is, and so we stop in. And, of course, Trader Joe’s has some curbs at it. By this point I am on a roll and so every curb or sidewalk I come to, I am exaggerating and making it a big production just to be able to step over the curb. My wife finally tells me I need to walk in by myself.

You know… sometimes there can be a lot of heavy things in life. Sometimes being able to laugh is great medicine.

Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope located in Columbia, South Carolina, where people find encouragement to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. Jeff has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. If you would like Jeff to speak to your group or event, you can connect with him at  [email protected].