May 12. Surgery to lower my eye pressure, using a laser to widen the relief canal in the eye. This is no magical laser that tracks my eye faster than I can move it. Instead, it is a rack very much like the usual examination apparatus. I lean my head on the rests for my chin and forehead, the doctor holds a lens into my eye – which my eye doesn’t mind, since it’s been numbed with drops – and through that lens, the doctor points the laser. He uses a foot pedal to fire it. All I see is a yellow light – not even a flash, mostly just a light that switches on and off. He does it a hundred times in each eye. His assistant, who also controls the power of the laser, tells him when he’s reached a hundred. Every once in a while I feel a tiny sting, or something more like a slightly painful pressure, and moan a little, because with my chin resting on the rack, I can’t speak. Then the doctor apologizes: That was a nerve. I’ll stay clear of that area from now on.