I dated a guy years ago who had lost ninety-five percent of the vision in his left eye as a child due to glaucoma. He casually told me he had had some head trauma when a foot kicked him in the face at Tae Kwon Do one day. Glaucoma is not a common or even uncommon result from such an event, but it can happen, and it happened to him. He was young and didn't bother telling his mother or father that his vision was decreasing from the perimeter of his eye inward over time. By the time he mentioned it, it was too late to save what little vision remained.
In most thing you would never know he experienced live monoccularly, but on occasion, it would be apparent. At the time the stereogram craze was happening. There were Magic Eye books and posters all over the place and he couldn't see any of them because you needed depth perception so you could manipulate to pull the hidden picture into focus. And depth perception requires two functioning eyes. Those stereograms annoyed him.
And then there was the day he was driving down the road and he asked me to hold the wheel because his eye itched. It hadn't occurred to me if you only have one working eye and have to close and rub it, even for the five seconds it might take to scratch that itch, you're blind. From that point forward, glaucoma was something very real and very scary to me.
Recently, with my eye surgeries and vision variations, I've had one to three different drops needed in each eye at different times. Currently, I'm only using a lubricating drop a few times in one eye, but there were months where I had steroid drops in both eyes multiple times each day. And at one of my follow-up appointments, my normally low ocular pressure increased unexpectedly in one eye. Instead of the two months return time, he immediately had me schedule for a month so we could watch the changing pressure.
They way they check the pressure is to put a little blue light up to your eye for a few seconds. It doesn't touch your eye and it's the most soothing, relaxing sort of blue you can imagine. When this happens, I always think of my sister-in-law who is dealing with some high ocular pressure of her own right now, and I send low pressure thoughts her way. The best thing about this little blue light is there's no puff of air. You can like the blue ring of soothing light and not become angry at it when it puffs at you when you least expect it. And then, four seconds later, the reading is over. It's eye pressure magic.
The good news is, as of today, without the need for post-operative steroid drops, pressure in both eyes is normal and low. Additional good news is the vision in my right eye that had made big changes in the last month. It had been very slowly improving with an expected time frame of up to twelve months to reach it's final, optimal vision. It's now seeing at 20/25, which is tremendous considering four months ago it was a grumpy 20/200.
The expectation is for my vision to gradually improve over the next few months, with both eyes improving in opposite directions. And by this I mean that the left eye will see better up close and the right eye will see better at distance. The left eye is technically 20/15, but it's, shall I say, "unsatisfactory" up close, which is frustrating. The right eye can now see 20/25, but it's not very good at distance, and I do like to know what those road signs say so I can make good choices while driving.
But my vision saga does seem to be drawing to a close. And all good sagas should come to an end. I sure hope this is one of those hundred percent happy endings. I like those kinds the best when they involve me.
The Big Boy Update: He has been busy lately saying cute things and making us laugh. The other morning I was putting on his socks. They were black socks, not his normal white with blue stripes socks. He said, "Where my socks?" and I told him these were his socks. He asked again. I assured him these were his socks. Then he said, "Daddy's socks" and I realized why he was asking. Daddy wears black socks. He must have thought those were daddy's socks. Then, his hands were dirty he thought. He looked over at the container of wipes and said, "Wipes." I gave him a wipe (he'd never asked for wipes before.) While he cleaned his hands with the wipe he said, "wash hands." Then, when he was done he looked around, holding out the now dirty wipe and said, "trash can." I blame school for this amazing, connected thought process, communication and preference for cleanliness. Oh, and at dinner the other night at a hibachi restaurant for my birthday, the waiter gave him chopsticks with the child holder added to them. Not only did he pick up his shrimp successfully with them, he got the food in his mouth time and time again. By the end of the meal he was trying to pick up rice with his new found utensil.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Up and down the stairs. At our house here on vacation, the stairs are carpeted and make a one hundred eighty degree turn at the mid-flight landing. There is also a railing available the whole way up and down, unlike at home, so we've been letting her go up and down the stairs alone. And she's been loving the freedom. There is tile at the bottom, but she's being careful and she's got to be given an opportunity to learn for herself, so we're hoping for the best.
Fitness Update: Down Mount Everest. Today was our first ski day on vacation. The children are in the "kennel" and Brian and I had morning ski lessons while the rest of the skiers in the family did their own skiing. The lesson went well, Brian and I learned at a reasonable pace and we ran into our family after the lesson at lunch. After lunch it was decided a longer, wee bit harder green would be a good way for Brian and me to cap off our day of skiing. So up we go, past the first easy slope an onto a much longer, more steeper chairlift ascent. I told my husband that our instructor had recommended the green to the right at the top based on our skill. Once we got up top, it turned out there was only one green slope down that was groomed. And it looked like Mount Everest to me. I tried to switchback as much as I could. It might be dark when I get in, if I make it, that is. But both Brian and I did make it, and it looks like we may even go back and ski some more tomorrow.
Someone Once Said: Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.
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