Subject: A bit of an "explanation" Date: 16 Aug 2000 06:58:12 GMT From: Chris Psaros Organization: Dis Newsgroups: alt.fan.dragonball Hi there everyone, This is going to be posted on my site as well, and it's basically a really long and drawn-out "thing" about what exactly is distracting me from working on the Season 3 comparisons, and DBZ Uncensored in general. Those of you who aren't regular visitors of my site, aren't terribly concerned about the lack of updates, or who don't care about my "personal issues" may want to skip this. I am perfectly aware that what I am about to write is rather self-serving, and some might see it as presumptuous to assume that anyone will give a shit. But I know from my correspondence with several thousand visitors over the years that some of you, for whatever odd reasons, have grown to genuinely care about me, some on a superficial level, and others a bit deeper. I have intentionally created a rather "intimate" atmosphere on the site, and people often tell me that visiting is like hanging out with a friend. I like that. This message is directed at you guys. Then there are those of you who are just getting irate at the lack of attention that I am giving to my site, and this is for you too. I need to start this by telling you a little something about myself. Specifically, that I am legally blind, and have been since age 5. Without corrective vision (either glasses or contacts) I am as blind as a bat, and even with correction, I max out at about 20/50. I've never mentioned this anywhere, not even on the "me" page, because it just didn't seem important to bring my handicap into a setting where it would never need to be an issue. I also know from my own life experience that handicaps tend to make some people uncomfortable, and that's the last thing I want to do. In fact, I think it's kind of a thrill to be involved with people in an environment like the Internet, where I can so easily escape from a condition that soon becomes obvious to anyone who interacts with me in person. Whether you accidentally catch me out of my contact lenses and in my (carefully concealed) coke bottle glasses, you notice me squinting at a menu, flirting with a cardboard Xena, or just tripping over a fire hydrant like a complete jackass, you begin to figure out that my vision aint exactly a hundred percent. My visual impairment was passed on genetically, as I was born with cataracts (a film that overtakes the lens of the eye, eventually destroying it and blinding the carrier if not removed). Lucky for me, modern medical science kicks ass, and the cataracts were taken out when I was five years old. Unfortunately, the lenses in my eyes had to go with them. Even more unfortunately, there was no such thing as artificial lenses at the time, so I have been stuck for the last eighteen years with eyes that are missing a rather crucial bit of material. Since age 5, therefore, I have never actually *seen* anything without the aid of either glasses or contact lenses. Without correction, my visual world is simply meshed colors and undefined shapes. I wish I could describe exactly what it is like, but I can't. It would be just as difficult for me to do so as it would for a perfectly sighted person to tell me about 20/20 vision. In any case, things have progressed quite a bit in the last 18 years, and it is now possible to get artificial lens implants. That's basically what all of this is coming down to: I'm getting my first one. Tomorrow morning. I've known that I would be going through with this surgery for only a month now, and it's been a big part of why I haven't been around so much, particularly in the last week or so. This is going to be perhaps the biggest event of my entire life, and it has made me an emotional basket case. And I'll tell you right now that on the eve of the big event, I'm absolutely freaking out. I am both excited and terrified by the prospect that my entire reality is about to change forever, and I will never again see the world in the way that I have for almost my entire life. Which brings me to another important reason for this message: I'm going to be intravenously anesthetized with sodium pentathol, which, for all intents and purposes, will kill me. Then my eye will be cut open and a piece of plastic less than an inch in diameter will have to be set precisely underneath my cornea. There's nothing quite like knowing that in a matter of hours you will be killed and sliced open. And that's just the first eye. I have to do the whole process again a few weeks later, once it is certain that my body has "accepted" the implant. Sounds like fun, eh? I'm certainly overreacting, but there is always that possibility that someone may make a mistake. That off chance that the surgeon might screw up and blind me, my body will go into shock, or the anesthesiologist will put a little too much into that needle. So by the time the sun sets tomorrow, I may be blind in one eye, have permanent brain damage, or in hell. Such things tend to stress a person a bit. The upside, of course, is that artificial lenses will technically make me a cyborg. Yeah, baby! So, ultimately, I am asking all of you who have read this far to be with me in spirit, or at the very least to take it easy on the hexes and voodoo dolls for the next 48 hours. And even a minor letup in the steady stream of "I hate you, update your site" messages would be much appreciated as well. It's going to be a risky, groggy, and most likely barfy couple of days. -- ----- Chris Psaros ----- -- *********************************************************************** A classic anime, beloved throughout the world. A production company with no respect for it. And a nation of viewers that would never know what they missed. http://dbzuncensored.terrashare.com Discover the truth at Dragon Ball Z Uncensored! ***********************************************************************