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Posts Tagged ‘vision’

This week has been interesting, to say the least. It has left me unsettled in a number of angles. Let me tell you about it.

First, you may remember that I have had a number of falls. In the last eight weeks, I have fallen four times and have had five or six near falls where I either am able to grab onto something and not fallen all of the way or someone has been nearby and has caught me. That’s a lot of falls. I had my doctor’s appointment last week and she set me up with an eye doctor. Her feeling was that I might have a vision problem that was making me lose my balance. I kind of thought she was crazy. I thought it was my medication, but I did go to the specialist. Well, it seems my primary care physican was right. I have developed “significant” cataracts in both eyes and they are obscuring my vision. I need to have them removed surgically, sooner than later. Additionally, I have diabetic hemoraging in my eyes, which we expected. But the kicker is that they also found a cyst in my right retna. It appears to be rather significant and it needs to be addressed immediately. The most likely treatment will be surgical removal. Yay. Not. I go to the retna specialist on the 16th. Wish me luck! I’m really kind of unnerved by this because the cataracts were very minor in October when I last had my eyes dilated and examined. Now they are significant. And the October exam didn’t find the cyst. So I think it is progressing, or rather growing, quite quickly. And that explains why I have been having so much trouble reading. I have over 18,000 unread emails in my inbox because I can’t read more than one or two before I have to stop. So if you’ve sent me an email in the last six months, it’s probably still unread!

Then, on Thursday my niece posted a link to an article on Facebook that caught my eye. She said something like “it’s weird to think we’ve been living next to a murderer all these years!” Yup. It caught my eye and I read the article. It was about a murder suspect that shot and killed himself as sheriff’s were knocking on his door to serve a warrant. I think that pretty much confirms he was guilty of that murder. Then I read on and was shocked by the murder. It was a cold case that I was sort of involved in back in October of 1974, when I was a freshman at Stanford University. It was a brutal murder. A very shocking murder and I was outside the Church when it happened. I’ve written about it before and about how I have had nightmares since that murder. For the last forty-four years I’ve had a nightmare that I was in the Church alone and the killer was coming after me and I couldn’t get out as I was locked inside with him. They are terrifying nightmares that have me wake up breathless and with my heart pounding. So I’m still sort of unsettled about that. And the coincidence that he would end up living right next door to my niece! What are the odds?!

On the good side, my daughter leant me her laptop charger that works with mine. Mine has been lost for months so I haven’t been able to use my laptop. I’ve been using my phone for reading and for writing so it has been very difficult. Her laptop isn’t working so she said I could keep the charger untill she gets the laptop fixed, which might be never. Yay for me. Boo for her. In any case, it will make it easier to read and write and, hopefully, I will be able to really get back to blogging. However, please forgive typos as I can’t see them easily so I can’t correct them and this Chromebook doesn’t seem to catch them with spell check. Oh well!

So here’s to the end of my nightmares, to a positive outcome with the cataracts and the cyst, and to more blogging. Yay!

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I wear contact lenses. Even with them I am half blind. Without them, I can’t see to walk without holding on to the wall, quite literally.

The night before last, one of my contacts fell out for no apparent reason. Sometimes they fall out because they dry out or because I rub my eye or something but this time, I don’t know why it fell out. I cleaned it and tried to put it back it. I couldn’t get it in and my eye became irritated from trying so I put the contact away and figured I would try in the morning. At least with one in I can sort of function.

On Saturday, I got up early to take my car in for an oil change. I tried putting my contact in again. It wouldn’t go in. Without that contact in, I can’t see well enough to drive so I didn’t take the car in. Instead, I waited several hours before trying again, unsuccessfully.

It is now Sunday afternoon and I still can’t get the thing back in! I’ve always had trouble getting them in and out. I’ve worn contacts since I was 20 years old. I’m 52. You’d think I would be able to do it by now. But no! Now my next course of action, should I not be able to get it back in by the morning, is to take the other one out and use my +3.50 readers. At least with those, I can see well enough to drive safely. Then when I need to read or write, I will put another pair of readers over those. For now, I am reduced to making the text size super big on my computer and to closing my contact-less eye as I try to read. Looks pretty funny to see me typing and trying to read with one eye closed.

When I win the lottery, I am getting lazik surgery for my eyes.

Yeah, right.

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