I AM FALLING APART

At 48, I realized my professional dream of publishing a novel. Around that time, also gota staph infection, became diabetic, and started losing my vision. Will sce the end of my story?

- ABRAHAM CHANG

I KNEW WHAT TO EXPECT. BOTH OF MY PARENTS HAD EXPERIENCED RETINAL detachments, so I was terrified but prepared. The warning signs sounded vague: "Be wary of sudden bright flashes or arcs of light," doctors told me. In reality, it was more like hot white blaster fire ricocheting off the hull of an Imperial light cruiser. "Be wary of any new 'floaters," they said. When the floaters came, they were like black, stringy Dementors descending unexpectedly over my field of vision.

I've always seen the world through this perspective-everything filtered through what I watched, heard, read, and loved. But consuming pop culture like the world was ending when it actually was wasn't so much fun. By December 2020, we had binged, read, spun enough. My wife and I decided to focus on our health, going on nightly mile-long walks around our Forest Hills neighborhood, in Queens. One evening, the symptoms started in my left eye. We rushed to a retina specialist for outpatient laser eye surgery. Pew-pewpew, and the hole was patched. Phew. More lasers in subsequent visits (both eyes, to be safe). My own up-close-and-personal Pink Floyd light-show experience, with encore performances.

Our newfound fixation on health was timely.A s taph infection puckered my left calf like Freddy Krueger's. Meanwhile, gummy bears were apparently killing me-prediabetes had matured into full-blown Wilford Brimley-style "diabeetus." I was hitting middle age hard. I was no Wolverine; my healing ability was vastly inferior. While my body was failing, my mind was racing. The realization that "life moves pretty fast" made me channel my inner John Hughes, as I attacked my decades-gestating manuscript like I was frantically writing a Ferris Bueller sequel.