This may be one of those ever rare two-cuppa mornings. Not so for hamsters. Zandy and Rocky are both up and zooming on their wheels, full of energy and creating quite a racket. It’s funny how they each pick and choose different things from their seed mix. Z likes the little seeds. Algernon likes the big seeds. Rocky likes everything but corn and the gray mystery pellets. (None of them eat those.) So I give Zandy’s rejects to Algernon, Algernon’s rejects to Zandy, Rocky’s corn to Algernon, and the pellet rejects to the dogs. Well, some of them. Cobie and Kelly think hamster pellets are the most exciting treats ever.
So. I have survived the first week of the new college quarter. I am taking Technical Report Writing, Art History, Drawing III, Digital Imagery, and Digital Typography II. That one’s probably going to be my favorite. It’ll be a tie between Technical Report Writing and Art History for which one numbs my brain the most. At least there are no business classes this go ’round. Which seems like a good segue into a Thankful Thursday on Saturday segment.
thankful thursday on saturday
1.) No business/management classes this quarter
2.) I went to the eye doc yesterday. More on this in a bit. The thankful part is, I really like my eye doctors. I feel like they care about me.
3.) I bought a tricycle. Yeah, a granny bike. It’s a hoot. More on this, too.
4.) Wagging tails.
5.) Flower bulbs. You only have to plant them once! And maybe thin them out every few years. I’ll have to check on that. Anyhow, I bought a metric buttload of them.
On the tricycle: I thought I would be able to take Cobie for runs with this, but he pulls too hard. So that part of my exercise plan was a dismal failure. However, I used to ride my bike a lot. A tremendous lot. But now I’m either too short or my balance feels off to ride my old bike. I’m hoping to work up to it gradually, and if it turns out I’m too short, I can always pick up a shorter model at a yard sale or somewhere.
On the eye situation: Two doctors. Dr P, who makes my glasses, and Dr L, who did the cataract. Yesterday I saw Dr P, because. Last summer I got new glasses, bi-focals, made. I loved them. Two weeks later (-ish) I was diagnosed with diabetes. By September, shortly after I started school, everything was blurry, but Dr L said there was no diabetic nerve damage, so I assumed I had messed up my exam. Maybe when Dr P was flipping lenses around and saying, “Does this one look better? Or this one?” I had answered wrong. I stopped wearing them, thinking I would gut it out until the insurance kicked in for 2012. By the end of Winter Quarter my head hurt behind my eyeballs so badly. I was spending 60+ hours a week at the computer, and my right eye watered a lot. It seems I had temporarily forgotten what an eyestrain headache actually felt like. I tried ibuprofen. Acetaminophen. Excedrin (since recalled, and no refund for you). None of them more than barely touched this headache. I tried decongestant, which I’m not supposed to take because of my blood pressure. That didn’t help either. My sudafed had failed me!
Then it occurred to me. Maybe this is eyestrain. I put my bifocals on and it got worse. I wanted to cry. Then I remembered my old pair, which I don’t like because…
Well. I didn’t like them because I saw this show about inmates at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. Every inmate I saw wearing glasses had frames either just like, or only subtly different, than mine. I guess I’m a bit snobby about not looking too much like a convict. But.
I put on my old glasses and within…ninety seconds? Slightly less? the headache was almost gone. Shortly thereafter, it was gone. Completely gone. Joy! Happy dance!
It’s always good to know your headache is caused by something fixable and not like, a brain tumor or something.
I called and made an appointment and got in to see Dr P. I don’t qualify for new frames until next year, but I do qualify for new lenses, and lets face it, I barely wore those frames for two or three months. Also, I really like them a bunch. So I’m ok with new lenses!
I asked Dr P if it was possible that my vision got better as my blood sugar came down. It really did seem like they were perfect when I got them and then, lickety split, they were horrible. And he said he practically guaranteed that was the case. However, on examination, he was unable to get my right eye to correct as clearly as it should, so he peered inside for a long time and said that my…well.
When they do cataract surgery they open a capsule of tissue that contains the cataracted lens and remove the lens. They put in an after-market lens, and kaboom. You can see! I’ll never forget the color I could see after that damned thing was gone. And I could see at night! Even if cars with headlights were coming toward me! It was a glorious thing to be sure. Cataracts can’t come back because the lens is gone; there’s nothing for a cataract to grow on. But sometimes after the surgery the capsule turns opaque. I forget what Dr P called this “posterior capsule opacity,” but a quick google search tells me it can also be called an after-cataract. This is apparently easily fixed with a laser during a painless five-minute office procedure. I’m all about seeing better and five-minute painless procedures. So that would be excellent if I could see well enough to read with both eyes again.
Especially that damn Art History book with its glossy pages and tiny print. I may keep that book after class ends, though…as a third line of home defense. Yanno, after Cobie and my old Royal typewriter.