Ivan Vrcek MD: Literal Miracle Worker. How do you compliment a professional appropriately who prevented your life from ruin?

How do you compliment a professional appropriately who prevented your life from utter ruin? I'm not sure, but I'll try. I was assaulted the day after Thanksgiving 2016, and had a beer glass shattered on my face leaving me with shards of glass in my eyes. Before Dr. Vrcek performed surgery, I was completely blind in my left eye, and I could see him wave his hand about directly in front of my right eye, and could see nothing past that. My diagnosis was bilateral ruptured globes with full thickness lacerations with tissue loss in my left eye. When I asked Dr. Vrcek what my probability of recovery after the procedure was he told me he was just trying to save the sight I had left. We were both reserved to the fact that I was now blind. Mind you, I had just graduated from University of Texas at Austin's nursing program the previous Spring, and had just started working at my dream job in the only Level 1 trauma/surgical ICU in Austin. It was a devastating realization that I had worked so hard and so long to see it all lost in an instant.

However, when Dr. Vrcek came to assess me early the next afternoon he took my eye shields off and I instantly could make out the shape of his face, color of his eyes, and his curly brown hair. Having thought I would be blind forever in the time before that I could only say, "HOLY [RS bleep]! I CAN SEE YOU!" I even remember the look of surprise on his face. He said, "Huh? What? How many fingers am I holding up?" I could count the number accurately next to his face a couple feet away, but not farther back behind him. With the huge turnaround in expectation post-op, I could feel the excitement in him. He instantly initiated a new care plan that involved a plethora of eye drop medications, consults to retinal and corneal specialists, and frequent appointments to gauge my progress and make alterations as necessary.

After 10 days post-procedure, my right eye had healed back to 20/20. My left eye had some actual tissue loss due to the nature of the laceration, so he had to reform my left eye, which took longer to heal. After 3 months of allowing the eye to reform and grow round again, as well as having sutures removed (I think it was a total of 17 in my eyes and 64 on my face) periodically throughout that time. My corneal specialist removed 4 sutures from my left eye, and my vision had gone from 2080 (legal blindness) instantly to 20/80, and I was back to work at my dream job in the SICU 3 days later. I have been told 100 times, including from Dr. Vrcek "You don't know how lucky you are." That is something you take seriously when a specialist in any field tells you that, and even more so when specialists continue to tell you it.

Here I am 3.5 years later, and my vision is still the same, and I am still working in the ICU. There are a slough of possible complications after that type of surgery, and my last check up with my corneal specialists says there are no signs of any of them. He paused, looked at the ground and smiled and once again told me, "You really don't know how lucky you are." I told him I did. Luck certainly had its role in my recovery, but none of it would have been possible without Dr. Vrcek's skill, precision, and care-planning as an occuloplastic surgeon. He gave me my life back. One that I thought was gone forever, and I will always be indebted to him.