Anybody who played cards with Ray Brown got the six-word lecture sooner or later.

While Ray’s saying applies to almost anything involving cards, I can vouch that blackjack is a blind man’s game. And maybe it’s something more: a measure of hope, confidence, and recovery.

Ray’s gruff voice reverberated in my mind throughout the summer as I tried to cope with serious vision problems. A series of torn and detached retinas in both eyes required eight surgeries in less than three months. I lost sight in the right eye. On the day I was to return from medical leave and begin work as a one-eyed newspaper editor, doctors diagnosed a detached retina in my good eye and arranged surgery for the next day. Despite the surgeon’s confidence, I couldn’t be sure when, or whether, my left eye would work again.

Living with little to no vision challenged my wife and me. She administered medicine in between cleaning up my dining room messes, guiding me from one place to another while I stepped on her heels, and protecting me from curbs that jumped in front of me. My progress seemed maddeningly slow. At my one-week checkup, I couldn’t see a K that filled the video screen eye chart. I was still getting lost in my home a week later; one day, I knew I was in the kitchen but had no idea where to find the stove or refrigerator.

We still laugh about the excursion when I kicked over three "wet floor" signs and then walked into a wall when I was determined to use a public men’s room on my own. The easiest way for me to tell time was to figure out how many episodes of "Pawn Stars" I had listened to.

Being able to read was a distant memory; the fear of not resuming to my 40-year newspaper career ate at me.

During one of my "woe is me" moments, my wife suggested a blackjack session to break the monotony. She could tell me my cards and the dealer’s up card, and I could decide what play to make. A few days later, we were in The Meadows casino south of Pittsburgh, my hand on her shoulder as we walked single-file toward a $10 game with a six-deck shoe. As we played, I could see two fuzzy rectangles in my spot, but not their value – not even their color. Relying on my wife’s announcing of the cards and my faith in basic strategy, I posted a $5 profit for the session.

Soon it mattered less that I had trouble picking out matching clothes or that I sometimes missed the glass when pouring milk. I had played blackjack and won, even when I couldn’t see.

On a blackjack trip a week or so later, I could make out my cards if I leaned directly over them, my face a few inches from the table. I could see my cards from a sitting position on a subsequent visit. And then I was able to make out the dealer’s card, too.

I didn’t need a professional exam to know my sight was improving. The distance from the player’s seat to the dealer’s up card doesn’t change. Each blackjack trip was concrete evidence my vision was returning. So was self-confidence.

Losing sight in one eye reduces depth perception; in a parking lot, I couldn’t readily tell whether I was about to step on a painted yellow line or walk into a yellow concrete post. But I had learned how to differentiate between a green chip and the felt on the blackjack table. Although I literally blind-sided someone walking next to me a couple of times, I could see when I had a pair of nines against a dealer’s eight. I was getting by on a Short Term Disability payment that amounted to 60 percent of salary, but by God, I had made money at the blackjack table.

Time and excellent medical care led to my physical healing. Playing blackjack was a vital prescription for my mental recovery.

In early October, doctors wrote an eyeglass prescription that will give me 20/20 vision in the left eye. That ensures I’ll be able to work, drive and live a normal life for years to come.

My wife and I celebrated by playing blackjack.