It's Not Easy Being Green

What I'm Wearing: Bomber Jacket: Forever 21, T-Shirt Calvin Klein, Joggers: Dockers, Shoes: PUMA

Dear readers,
I have been dying to wear a bomber jacket here on mrdombaza.com. I wanted to wear a green one, so I went and bought a green one! I love this jacket. It was honestly so cold when we shot this outfit, the jacket kept me warm throughout this shoot. I based this outfit off of the many shades of green and that includes camo. This jacket just blended so well with the shoes, that is why I wanted a green jacket. I chose to wear simple black t-shirt and beige joggers to blend it all in. The first outfit of the year didn't have to be extravagant. I wanted to pay tribute to Glaucoma with the color green, but also slowly build up to more and more for the outfits to come in 2017. I talked a little bit about the shoes already, but I still want to praise them for a bit. I love these shoes. I had my eye on them for awhile. It's not my normal style, but I've been obsessing over street style outfits on instagram and they just keep growing on me. I kept going back and forth to the store debating if I was going to purchase these kicks. I eventually gave in on my 4th visit. I love them! Not only do they fit me great, the are really comfy. I tend to wear uncomfy shoes in the city, I don't wear outfits like this often, I'm more of a coat and blazer kind of guy, but like I said streetwear is growing on me.
Do you guys like this kind of style on me? I kind of dig it. I hope you like this first outfit of the month, and get what I'm trying to pull off.

Let's chat about Glaucoma and why the color green now means so much to me. As many of you know I was diagnosed with Glaucoma 3 years ago at age 18. I was on top of the world then. I had my career in my hands and I felt unstoppable. One night I was invited to attend one of my heroes concert, Miley Cyrus. I went to the show and had the time of my life. Little did I know, I would wake up the next day and not see anything out of my right eye. I can't describe to you the fear I had. I was rushed into emergency surgery 2 weeks later for a severe cataract. I know you are probably thinking, how does an 18 year old get a cataract of a 75 year old in one night? Up until this day we still don't know how that happened to me. After surgery my eye was stable for a bit, until my eye pressure started going up. I was receiving this sharp pain in my eye. It hurt so badly, it still hurts today. I felt and still feel, on my bad days, that someone is trying to push out my eye and/or poke a needle in. It's so painful on some days. When my pressure would not go below 50, we knew it was time for me to receive my 2nd surgery in 2015. When I got that surgery I had a tube put in my eye. Little that you guys know, there is a tube behind my right eye helping it function so I can continue with my daily life. The tube helps, but it's not meant to help me forever. It's a temporary fix. The tube or in medical terms "valve", is meant to help with lowering my eye pressure. That along with injections and medications is how you help control people with Glaucoma. Not everyone has this disease as bad as me, and I don't have it as bad as other people. Some people are already blind. I was given 5-15 years before my time comes for that. I honestly don't believe it will happen to me though. Overseas they are trying to create a cure for us Glaucoma patients. So far everything seems to be working. If it continues to work, then maybe one day in the near future all of this will be a thing of the past.

I've been asked countless times, what exactly can I see out of my eye? Well, I don't see like you guys. I see everything clearly on my left eye, and I straight up don't see anything but a blur in my right eye. Sometimes I don't even see the blur, it's just there, my eye is just there. You all probably wonder why I have the glasses on my face all the time, that's apart of me now. I can't look at the light or be around light without my glasses. The pain of even seeing light is unbearable. My vision literally shuts off and my eye begins to leak as if I was crying tears but it's just leakage from the inside. In a way they are tears, painful tears. Behind the scenes, behind these photos, I bet you didn't know I use a cane to guide me sometimes. I've been using a cane for the last 2 years now. I have no shame when I need to use it. People stare, but I let them. Give them something to talk about. I don't care. I've learned to accept this disease and what it's done to me. It's apart of me and even when that cure comes, it will always be apart of me. I feel as if this disease has been a beautiful disaster and blessing in disguise. When I got sick, so many people from my music career, to my personal life decided to exit, because they could not handle working with someone or being friends with someone who was falling off a cliff every single hour of the day. These people left me to bleed, but here I am, still standing. I was at the bottom of that cliff but somehow I know in my heart If I keep climbing that life I loved and once had, will continue to come back to me, even if it's not in the way I expect it. I see it happening now. I'm in much different place than I was 3 years ago. This disease has helped me evolve in life, and it's also given me one hell of a story to share with the world. I will continue to share my battle and my journey behind the scenes in "Through My Eye's and Ears" here on mrdombaza.com. I hope you will come back and read my weekly stories when I finally being posting there. If you would like to learn more about the causes, treatments, and ways to help with glaucoma, please visit glaucoma.org. They have the info you are looking for there. Thank you guys for stopping by and reading. I'll see you at the end of the month with my 2nd outfit of the year. Did you guys like this look? Let me know in the comments below. What do you guys think about this disease and the journey so far? I would love to know. I'll be doing Q&A posts in "Through My Eyes and Ears", so if you have any questions, please let me know. I would love to answer them.

Lastly, In the lyrics for "It's Not That Easy Being Green" Kermit sings, "When green is all there is to be, It could make you wonder why, but why wonder? Why Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful! And I think it's what I want to be." 
I am proud to be green. It's made all the struggles, heartbreak, and beautiful moments in between worth it. It's not easy being green, but it's beautiful and I think it's what I want to be. 

All My Love, 
Dom 

Photographer: Joanna Wheeler

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Stories From My Life - Chapter 1