Diary One
Gegen Dummheit gibt es keine Pillen.
When Dr. Josef Brunhamm told me to expect disappointment after I expressed my high expectations for the results of this experiment, I thought he was simply trying to keep me down to earth. However this experiment was supposed to help me regain what I lost, and there was absolutely nothing to be disappointed about. Ever since I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition that quickly damaged my eyes to the point of blindness within a few short months, I struggled to live out my daily routines. I had to limit my exercise training because I couldn't see where I was going, and it was a struggle to even find silverware to eat my food with.
I was already blind when the aliens came and invaded Corneria. I literally picked up a chair (well it felt like a chair) and tossed it across my room because I felt so helpless. I am a soldier of the Bundeswehr, the Jhauntan branch of the CMF, and I have a sworn duty to protect not only this planet but also the Jhauntan homeland. But how could I do that when I couldn't even find the toilet in my own apartment bathroom without waving my arms to feel for it and hoping I don't bump my head against the walls? So when I was given this offer to participate in an experiment that could possibly regain my eyesight, I pounced on it like it was a slice of goddamn cheese. What I didn't anticipate however were the weeks of physical and mental exams and the waiting before the actual surgery. The doctors warned me of constant headaches because my brain may or may not be able to fully adapt to the cybernetic replacements, and that I should never expect a complete restoration. Still, I kept my hopes up. I wanted to be able to see peoples' faces again, to see the sunset and sunrise, and how beautiful the flowers are again.
After almost two years of blindness, I finally 'woke up'. The first six hours could only be described as a personal hell, as my brain figuratively went into shock as it suddenly realized that it had to deal with such a foreign, computerized set of objects. When a nurse turned on the lights in my hospital room while I was awake, the sudden change from dark to light caused so much pain and shock that I screamed in utter panic and pain, seeing nothing but a white void. Even after the nurse quickly turned the lights back off, the horrible fogged vision persisted for another half-hour before it returned 'to normal', but it would cycle again whenever my new eyes were exposed to even calm daylight. The doctors prescribed to me a set of specialized shaded goggles which finally resolved that problem enough for me to step out at daytime without screaming in pain.
Everything in this world are now in shades of white, black, and grey. In the average furres' eyes, there are millions of rods and cone cells that allow us to perceive vision. The rods specialize in allowing us to see better at night or in the darkness, while the cones specialize in color in the form of green, blue, and red. All the colors that we see around us are merely the result of these cones firing off in rapid succession and pattern combinations. No matter how great our technology is however, we still cannot fully replicate the sheer complexity of what Mother Nature had given us in terms of vision, and I learned that the hard way. Maybe someday in the far future, blind people can finally see color again with cybernetic eyes. For now, I have to settle with grey, grey, grey, black, and more grey of variant shades. Also, these cones and rods fire off in very tiny fractions of a second, but there are slits of moments in between in which even the normal person would be blind. In order to cover those moments of blindness, our brains would create so-called 'after images' to give us the impression that we can see motion as persistent, even when it's not. With these cybernetic eyes however, while they are fast, it's not exactly as fast as it 'should be'. As a result, the motions around me look borderline jerky, like the whole world is operating on a slightly slower frame rate.
Another five months went by. More testing, more training to adjust, more visits by doctors. Then I was given a notice that the CMF is allowing me to return to duty, which was a shock to me. Still I accepted it with pride, and I'm back in uniform once again. Now I can serve Corneria once again but... Leichter gesagt als getan. Better said than done.