Computers keep

By Derriq Young Sports Editor

Going into the procedure, he knew it was a gamble. Senior Thaine Cook was told there was a 25 percent chance the operation would permanently blind him in his left eye.

He knew the risk. But he took the gamble.

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“What I miss most about my childhood is the lack of stress and anxiety.”

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“The thing I will miss most about my childhood is all the naps I wanted or didn’t want but still got.”

Cadence Whiteside

Early in his life, Cook was verbally diagnosed with Asperger’s and ADHD. By the age of 2, he was nonverbal and struggled communicating with others. His eyesight was already a problem, but he did not know how to tell anyone.

“If the surgery had happened at age 3 or 4, they said they had a 90 percent success rate,” said Richard Cook, Thaine’s father. “But the problem was he was uncommunicative about it at that point. He didn’t know how to explain what was wrong with his vision. He didn’t know what normal was.”

As Cook began to get older, his vision worsened. When his left eye started getting weak and forming what is called a “lazy eye,” Cook first started wearing an eye patch when he was almost 8.

In addition, severe migraines set in when he looked out of both eyes at the same time since the images he saw did not connect. Double vision was a constant.

Cook said the vision in his right eye started having “a mind of its own.” A birth defect caused a disconnect between the eye and his brain, so he switched his patch to the right eye.

At age 15, Cook realized surgery was his best option if he wanted to have standard eyesight. It was 2020, however, and so COVID protocol made the already challenging surgery even more stressful for him and his family.

“He had never had surgery or anything like that,” his mom Malinda Cook said. “So as a mother, it was very scary to not be with my child during something like that. I’ve always been there for him.”

After the surgery, Cook was in excruciating pain. Doctors had cut the muscles on the inside of the eye to try to make one closer to the other.

“He wasn’t allowed to have many pain killers because they had to be able to test his eye and we had to be able to put antibiotic drops in his eye,” Richard Cook said. “So he was in pain for a week. Bleeding out your eye socket is not a fun thing.”

Cook’s eyes stayed relatively fixed for only three weeks before they went back to focusing separately, which ultimately caused more pain. Doctors offered to do another surgery to try again, but Cook declined.

“It was a stupidly expensive surgery, and the surgery was ultimately unsuccessful, causing even more pain in the eye,” Cook said. The doctors also tried various eyeglasses that would to work together. No thick they were, they He went back to wearing patch.

Depression started Cook tried to focus sions. He loves gardening started raising rabbits add structure and everyday life. He spends minutes to an hour the 17 rabbits he owns.

Cook also runs Dungeons Dragons with his friends Saturday for about

“It is my main social gives me creative freedom,” said.

Growing up nonverbal, used his keenness to express what he to others. When he taught himself how computers. By age known to his family guy.”