By Jim Hunt
I’ve hired six city managers, chaired more meetings than I can count, and spent a good part of my life believing I was reasonably in control of things. Then my left eyelid decided it had leadership potential.
Late in the day—or when I got tired—it would slowly start to close. Not a dramatic slam, just a steady creep downward like a window shade. At first, I wrote it off as one of those “getting older” annoyances you learn to live with. But then it started affecting my vision. And it started showing up in pictures. I wasn’t squinting at the sun—I was squinting at life.
The strangest part was that my car noticed before I fully did. After I’d been driving a while, the “attention alert” would light up on the dashboard and suggest I pull over and rest. The irony? I didn’t feel tired. I wasn’t nodding off. But the car’s message kept coming: something is off—pay attention.
That little warning turned out to be more accurate than I wanted to admit.
When I went to the eye surgeon for an evaluation, they did a test that felt both simple and genius: they taped my eyelid open and gave me a vision test to see how much the drooping lid was blocking my field of view. The diagnosis is called ptosis—droopy eyelid—and it can affect you more than you realize. My surgeon explained something that made everything click: when your eyelid blocks part of your vision, your brain works overtime trying to compensate for the missing information. That extra strain adds up.
Suddenly, a few things made sense. The headaches I’d get after reading. The way I would strain over a newspaper like the print had shrunk overnight. The subtle fatigue that came from fighting my own body to see clearly.
I’ve been fortunate to be in the care of Dr. Jennifer Sivak with MonHealth in Morgantown. You meet some doctors who are competent, and you meet some who are compassionate. Every now and then you meet one who is both, highly skilled, but also personal, patient, and reassuring. Dr. Sivak is that kind of doctor. She didn’t just tell me what needed to happen, she made sure I understood it, and she made the whole process feel manageable. After she evaluated me, she laid it out plainly: this wasn’t a one-and-done fix. It would take three procedures to correct the problem. Over the past month, I’ve had two surgeries, and on Monday I go in for the third.
It’s been an interesting routine, prepare for surgery, go through the procedure, recover, then repeat the process two weeks later. I’ll tell you something I didn’t expect: seeing the same hospital staff each time, has made the whole ordeal more bearable. Familiar faces matter. Calm voices matter. Kindness matters. When you’re the one in the gown, those things don’t feel small.
As I get ready for the third procedure, I’m ready to be done with the cycle and move into full recovery. Mostly, I’m ready to stop thinking about my eyelid so much.
This experience has also reminded me how precious eyesight is, and how careless we can be about protecting it. Wear safety glasses when you’re doing anything risky. Be cautious around tools, debris, chemicals, anything that can change your vision in a second. And get regular eye checkups. Some issues don’t announce themselves loudly. Sometimes the first warning comes in a photo where you look like you’re squinting. Or a dashboard light that says, “Pay attention.”
I’ve been fortunate. I’ve never had to wear glasses, and after cataract surgery a few years ago, my doctor told me I had nearly 20/20 eyesight. I don’t take that for granted anymore.
So, Monday I’ll go in for surgery number three. And if all goes well, my eyelid will stay up where it belongs and I’ll get back to seeing clearly, in more ways than one.
