Blinded By The Light

I have my monitor ratcheting up the size of fonts to about…oh 48 point type, all the better to see you with, my dear… and I feel like I’m about 84 years old.
The latest & greatest: A Virus. Yep. It took over my face and my eyes, and so all the antibiotics in the world weren’t going to touch it. I finally had a semi-breakdown on Friday morning, because this sort of pain had reached ‘incomprehensible’ in my book. And I am fortunate enough, through my knitting world, to have connections to TWO eye doctors. My friend Jane reached out to me initially (and I was all, oh no biggie, I just got some drugs, we’re under control) and that was who I called first, trying to keep my voice out of ‘hysterics’ mode and to talk more than sob. She and her husband were traveling, so she put him on the phone, and he immediately determined that the drops I was on weren’t going to cut it. He instructed me to get new ones, and if things didn’t improve throughout the day, to get myself in to be seen.
Things didn’t improve. And so at 4:30, on a Friday, I’m calling (and again, trying to keep the hysteria low enough so I can actually communicate), and the husband of my other knitting friend agreed to stay late and see me.
Good thing.
It’s a virus, and I had scads of microscopic lesions all over my eyes, so many that they took pictures, and I’ll probably have my baby blues in a textbook or an article someday, illustrating Most Severe Case Evah. He prescribed anti-viral tablets, and off we went. Unfortunately, things had reached such a state that I was pretty well incapacitated. Light of any kind was crippling. Can’t watch TV, too much light. Computer- gah. Painful. So I slept. And returned to the doctor yesterday, who prescribed some anti-viral drops on top of the tablets, so now we’re really going after it. Today is the first decent day – my vision is still very blurry, but I’m not cringing in pain just because my eyes are open. I keep hoping every time I wake up that when I open my eyes, I’ll be able to see again, like ‘normal’.
I think I’ve learned quite a few lessons – one, is that pain needs to be paid attention to. I was in pain all of last week, but kept working, kept minimizing, kept slapping band-aids on my face and thinking it would go away. Pain in my family, growing up, was something you endured and you didn’t talk/whine/cry about it. In fact, the more you gritted your teeth and just got through it, the more admirable you were. (Perspective: my father pushed a VW Bus to the top of a steep, 40′ hill to get it jump started on the decline, so he could drive himself to the hospital for his appendicitis attack. Granted, it was that or die, but that’s legendary stuff where I’m from.) At my house, if you cried, you were being a baby. I hate how ingrained it is in me. But what this has shown me is that pain is a really good indicator -a warning light- that should be paid attention to, and it’s better to shuttle around to multiple doctors to figure it out early, than to wait and have something more serious on your hands. Two, never take your sight for granted. This semi-blindness has been equally sobering and terrifying. All the things I love to do – spend time online, watch tv, knit, feel sunshine on my face – to even attempt them has been frustrating and painful. Last, but not least, my husband and my friends rock. Hubs has done everything around here, and taken care of me as much as he can. Beth fetched my prescription, Carmen took me to the doctor – I’m grateful they’ve been there, and I know even more friends would pitch in if I called upon them. It certainly is a good reminder to me to be grateful, in all of this.
Oh, and we’re going to wait on enrolling Tripper or Polly into Guide Dog training. I think there’s been enough progress with my eyesight, and I can only imagine trying to walk in the park with one or both of them as my leader….. they’d be dragging me up a tree after a squirrel in 3o seconds flat…