Bonnie Recovery

Eye Scare(s)

On July 3 I had quite a scare with my right (good) eye.  I went swimming with Jen and the kiddos.  It felt oh so good; I’ve been longing to go swimming since January;  I dreamed of the freedom of movement that a bit of weightlessness would give me.  And I was right; it was divine.  At 2, Abi is QUITE the swimmer.  While I was trying not to get water in my eyes, Abi was jumping into the pool with joyful abandon, splashing her GrandB time and again.  Instead of washing my eyes out thoroughly upon return to the house, I went to sleep for a couple of hours and woke up with impaired vision.  I can’t recall going so quickly into depression and despair:  what had I done.  My precious sight seemed gone.  After a while I decided to try my “reading” contact lens.  I couldn’t find it.  It wasn’t in the case where I keep it.  More depression and despair.  Then I remembered that months ago I had “lost” my contact only to find that I had two in one eye.  I removed what I had thought to be my long range right lens and found that I had two stuck together,  As soon as both were out of my eye, my vision was back!

My eye surgeon in Boston will put a piece of placenta tissue on my left eye after the operation and then stitch that eye closed.  That is what she ultimately had to do last winter to get my first corneal transplant to heal.  Her perspective is that we might as well bite the bullet and jump to that solution immediately.  It makes sense because I can’t just pop in to see here like I did then.  But I really detest having my eye stitched.  I have been telling myself that because I’m so competent with the contact lenses I should just use them instead of stitching.  Well, given the events of July 3, I have to admit I am not that competent.

Unfortunately the story doesn’t end there.  On July 10 (yesterday) I was pretty sleepy all day,  Zac had a fever on Thursday and maybe I was anxious about my getting whatever he had.  I finally woke up enough about 2 to put on my lenses.  The left lens went on well using a thick jel (I can’t see with my left eye and so I use this opaque stuff).  I then prepared the right lens.  I reached for the bottle of peroxide soaking liquid instead of the saline wetting solution.  OUCH, OUCH, OUCH.  Jennifer had to take the lens out of my eye.  At first I could see vey well with that eye, but pain and blurred vision got worse.  Twenty four hours later I’m still on pain killers, but my vision is slowly returning.  I can’t yet put the lens in my right eye, and that in itself causes pain.  I have to ask myself what I have against my only good eye that I treat it so badly. Daniel says it is my “trickster” at work, and surely that must be the case.  Maybe I love it too much.

Other than these incidents, and others like them, I am having a grand time here at Jen’s house.  I love being with the kiddos.  Zac is writing a book he calls “My Baseball Career.”  He works happily on it most every day.  He is also reading the first Harry Potter book and doing workbooks on grade 3 level skills.  Lucas loves to create imaginary places;  we are having a ball with that.  Abi talks more every day.  She is pure joy about 95% of the time; the rest of the time, she is falling apart screaming. 

With these eye and sleepiness incidents, I haven’t made the progress on the book that I would like to, but it is coming along.  I have a really good set up for my computer and large monitor.  Today I enhanced my setup with a narrow card table where I now keep the laptop that drives the monitor.  Any writer would be pleased with my professional setup. 

Bonnie for BanD

 

Food for thought, while US Health Care & Costs are discussed

TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2009

My whopping $32 emergency room visit in the land of socialized medicine

by John Aravosis (DC) on 7/21/2009 04:38:00 PM

"This afternoon I went to the emergency room of the Centre Hospitalier National d'Ophtalmologie des Quinze-Vingts in Paris, France. It's a hospital that specializes in eye problems. I had to have emergency eye surgery on the spot.

With the national debate on health care raging in Washington, it seemed timely to share my story."  click to continue reading
My whopping $32 emergency room visit in the land of socialized medicine

/Daniel for BanD