Half Blind: The Right Eye

Before going into the complicated mess of the left eye, I should give a brief recap of the right eye going blind in 2003.
I exerted too much pressure on a dull borer bit on a drill. The central axis snapped. The bit slipped from the door and sprayed the right eye with sawdust. This created a cornea abrasion.
Thanks to a sharp steak fry and a not-so-sharp woman named Danielle, I’d had a cornea abrasion before and knew how to treat it. Unfortunately, did not treat it long enough by leaving it covered to give the eye its rest and allowing the cornea cells to realign over the temporary obstruction to a smooth viewing surface. In the subsequent weeks, they eye pulled to the outside.
The eye’s efforts to look around the temporary obstruction striated the muscles of the eye. The pulling muscles worked to peel the retina off the back of the eye.
The end result is that the right eye is blind in the way most people think of when they hear "blind." They eye is dark except for a pinhole of vision. That pinhole is less usable than it might otherwise be for two reasons. The field of vision is misaligned, creating ghost images that run above and to the right of the normal vision. The right eye also has a cataract that makes the misaligned image very blurry.
I did not recognize the signs of the quickly growing retinapathy. I saw a few doctors. None suggested the potential for re-attachment while the wound was fresh.
The incident exemplifies the medical profession’s approach to diabetic patients. I saw a couple doctors, and began monitoring the left eye’s retina regularly. I ended up as a regular patient of the esteemed Doctor John Lowenstein of Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.
When I gave Dr. Lowenstein the history of the problem with the right eye, he told me point blank: "You never had a cornea injury. This is from diabetes."
You’re the doctor. You must be right. I suppose I just imagined the borer bit and the sawdust and the cornea abrasion.
A student doctor joined the party of strobing painfully bright lights into my eyes. In going over things with the student, Lowenstein said "And look at this. You almost never see muscle striations like this with diabetic retinapathy."
I leaned forward and said, "Yo, doc. Cornea injury? Eye pulled to the side, as in striated?"
He just said "Oh." The look on his face was that of someone who had been called out for farting in a crowded elevator.