Blog Post
Weekly.
Stories.
Written with blood, sweat and tears
Hans Faber • apr. 18, 2021
I couldn’t see the large sign in front of the small clinic, but my girlfriend could. “Asile des Aveugles,” sheread. Asylum for the blind.
Some stories are written with blood, sweat and tears. That’s what came to my mind last Friday when I finished the final words for a draft of my new book.
Around me the wall was plastered with 38 chapters, neatly divided into 10 parts. A roadmap for a new thriller of Vince van Zandt. It will guide my writing for the rest of the year.
I had worked on the setup before. The story was in my head. Extracts were on paper. Large parts were also missing. I couldn't bring myself to finish the setup. Until about six weeks ago…..
The reason is a bit macabre. In my right eye I suddenly saw black dots. As if flies in the distance were fluttering around. Only these flies were in my eye. Probably the snow, I thought. I was in Switzerland, where quite a lot had just fallen. It'll be fine, no worries.
Two days later there was suddenly a gray filter over my eye. There was nothing to be seen in the mirror, but I could see something inside. When the filter suddenly turned red the next day, my girlfriend sent me to the doctor. Stubborn as I am, I drove to the optician. “Did you come here by car?” the optician asked. "How?" She wrote down the address of the clinic in Lausanne on a piece of paper.
That same afternoon I crossed the square in front of the small clinic with my girlfriend. "At least you're in good company here," Yvonne joked. She looked up at a large sign that I couldn't read. “Asile des Aveugles,” she read. Asylum for the blind.
A few hours and many examinations later, the diagnosis was clear: my retina was torn in three places. Fortunately, the doctor had a spot for the operation the next morning. The sooner the surgery, the man said, the less likely the risk of permanent injury will be.
That evening I googled where I had ended up: Asile des Aveugles seemed to be the best eye hospital of Europe, treating patients from all over the world. I could have ended up in a worse place.
That’s most likely what the doctor thought a few days later when he concluded that he had done a good job. Now it was all up to the eye itself. Within 6 to about 8 weeks, we would know to what extent my eye would recover.
A few days after the operation I walked through the FNAC like a blind man looking for a computer screen and a keyboard. That the keyboard was French, with some very annoying deviations compared to my normal keyboard, was no problem. At least I was able to go back to work again – it is possible to write with one eye.
Six weeks later, my eye hasn't fully recovered, although it is heading in the right direction, but at least I can see well enough to spot all the extracts of my next book hanging on the wall.
