Photo from @RepDanCrenshaw on Twitter
CONGRESSMAN DAN CRENSHAW, who represents parts of the Houston area in the U.S. House of Representatives, took to social media this week to assure supporters that he's slowly on the mend after emergency eye surgery a few weeks ago.
"I'm still alive," he says in the video posted to Instagram and Twitter Thursday. "I'm still doing OK."
The former Navy SEAL, whose sprawling district touches both inner-Loop areas like Montrose as well as suburban Spring, Humble and Kingwood, lost his right eye in an improvised explosive devise detonation while on his third active-duty deployment in Afghanistan in 2012. He required the emergency surgery when the retina in his left eye became detached — more fallout from his nine-year-old war wounds — which Crenshaw described at "a terrifying prognosis for someone with one eye," he said at the time.
"I still can't see yet very well," he added in the recent video. "I still have some pain and inflammation."
The congressman, who appeared on the cover of CityBook as part of the magazine's 2019 Leaders & Legends portfolio, did seem to be in good spirits, however, at one point cracking a joke about returning to work remotely, including attending committee hearings. "Even a blind knuckle-dragger can do committee hearings," he said.
Crenshaw appeared on the cover of CityBook in 2019.
He said his doctors are optimistic that his sight will "basically" come back. "We're hopeful I'll return to some sense of normalcy in the next couple months."
"We'll be back in the fight soon," he concluded.
As of Friday afternoon, the video had been viewed nearly half a million times on Instagram shared nearly 1,800 times and liked more than 70,000 times on Crenshaw's two Twitter pages. On the latter platform, unsurprisingly, many of the replies tilt to the political, and often mean, pointing to points of disagreement and wishing ill on the decorated war veteran. There were also many well wishes, including some that pointedly depart from tribal political nastiness.
"We don't agree on much," said Terry Hogue, whose Twitter profile places him in San Franciso. "May your recovery be swift and complete."
