Tag Archives: health

eyeballs

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It’s spring break.  On Tuesday, between rounds of snow, in what has become an every-two-years family outing, we all went to the optometrist.

The good news is, my vision has changed so little Doc P said I didn’t really need new glasses.  Woot!  I am getting them anyway.  I told him that, with my courseload, and so much work to do on the computer, I live with an almost perpetual eyestrain headache.  The computer screen is too far away for the reading portion of my bi-focals, and too close for the distance portion, so I mostly work with no glasses at all.  I especially do this when I am doing work that requires me to go back and forth between the computer and a text book, near to far, near to far.  The eyestrain headache is nothing compared to the headache I get trying to do that with my specs on.

Doc P said that since my problem is going from near to mid-distance, a pair of computer-specific spectacles wouldn’t help, which I already knew.  I told him I didn’t actually think there was probably a solution, other than tri-focals, which I adamantly do not want, which is why I have just been living with the problem.  He suggested that I consider trying no-lines, which he wears.  And since I had been watching, somewhat jealously, as he went back and forth from a paper chart to the computer screen, I took the suggestion seriously.  Last time, two years ago, I rejecteced no-lines because a.) they cost a hundred dollars more, b.) my mother told me she had a much tougher time adjusting to no-lines than to her lined ones, and c.) I thought the absence of lines was merely cosmetic.  It seems they’re not.

He explained that with no-lines bifocals there’s actually a gradient of vision (not his words exactly).  Somewhere in the gradient should be a range where I can see the computer screen clearly.

Yes, it’s a hundred bucks more and it might not work or I might hate them so bad I can never adjust to them.  But I hate having a headache all the time too, so.  And on the up side, I still have my perfectly good pair (and I still love the frames) that I can fall back on, so the worst thing that can happen is being out a hundred (and twenty, which is my frame co-pay) dollars for glasses I can’t use–but I’ll still be able to see.

So I’m going to try that.  I really didn’t find any frames (in my price range) as well as I like my old pair, but I found a pair in the not-too-hideous zone and only a few dollars more than the allowance.  I like to have wire eyes and plastic earpieces because I like the look of wire but my skin doesn’t play well with metal.  It eats the finish right off at the temples.  This pair has that, but I’m not so sure of the shape.  The glasses-picking helper lady kept suggesting these cat-shaped angular shaped glasses and saying how trendy they were.  I finally said, “I’m not really a trendy person.”  What I wanted to say was, “Do you see me in my sweat pants and man-tee?  Do I look trendy to you?”  But she’s a very nice woman so I curbed myself.

We’ll see how that goes.  The specs are supposed to be ready in two weeks.

Now for the bad news.

Mr Moth has glaucoma.  Mind you, they told us this last time, and he never followed through, but maybe the numbers were worse this time, but Doc P has laid down the law and Mr Moth is there right this second on his follow-up appointment.  He is probably going to have to get eyedrops, and hopefully that is all.

On the up side of the bad news, glaucoma runs in Mr Moth’s family and no one is blind from it.  It’s treatable.  His mother and brother have both had surgery, and only one of them (I forget which) still has to take the drops.  They both had my eye surgeon, and he is among the best there is.  So the bad news isn’t terrible news, only another little stress-ding in our lives.

Now I need to get cracking on some school work.  I haven’t accomplished much this spring break except dog-butt-care and sitting around nursing a backache (and not having eyestrain, which has been wonderful), but all good things must come to an end, probably because all things must come to an end, good or otherwise.

When you think about it, I choose the headache.  No one beat me and forced me to go back to school against my will.  But I still reserve the right to whine a little about the time pressure and the headaches…because it makes it easier to put up with them.

Thanks for listening.

on seasons and glasses

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Today we all have appointments with the eye doctor.  I don’t really need new glasses, but it’s that time.  Tim doesn’t think he needs new ones either, but I say it would be good for him to have a second pair.  He could leave one at work and not have to worry about forgetting them anymore.  Zor, well.  She’s suggestible.  Ever since I made the appointments she’s been complaining she can’t see.

We’ll be “trusting” Kelly to stay home and not destroy her own heinie–I hope that’s not a huge mistake.

Also there’s a huge weather situation pending.  Snow, sleet, your basic happy swell almost-spring fun times in Ohio.  8 to 10 inches worth!  It’s not supposed to get truly nasty until this evening though, so here’s hoping.  We have T-Moth to do the driving, which in nasty weather is always a plus.  And Berta has new-ish tires on the front and decent ones on the back.

Lying black wooly-bear caterpillar notwithstanding, this has not been a very ferocious winter.  And every season–we are blessed to have four of them–is welcome when it arrives.  But as we wear toward the end of each season, I am ready for the change.  At the end of spring, I am ready to stop sneezing and to sit outside in the stuffy dark and listen to the nightbugs.  At the end of summer I am ready for cool air and warm colors.  At the end of fall, I am tired again of sneezing, and I am ready to see the world blanketed in purest white. 

At some point the snow melts or turns gray, and we enter our second “deer season”, not a hunting season, but just a period of time where all of outdoors is the color of deer–which is probably why deer are that color.  And when this time comes around, I begin to crave color like it’s air.

I need yellow and pink and green and blue, and white in the sky instead of on the ground.  Bring on the violets and the robins and the cardinals and the jays.  I need gray to be a design choice and not a relentless sky color.

I need spring.

And maybe glasses, although perhaps I should postpone my appointment until July so I don’t come back with some neon green frames with rhinestones or something.

friday five

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One:  I went to the eye surgeon yesterday and got dilated, which I abhor.  He found a “thickening” at the back of my right eye.  It’s not something he can zap, so now I have to take drops.  The instructions on the bottle don’t match the instructions he told me, so now I have to call and find out which are the correct instructions.  Also I need to ask, “A thickening of what?” because I have no idea.

Two:  I get to take Cobie back to the vet today.  T-Moth took him on Tuesday and Cobie had such a conniption he had to be muzzled, and even then they couldn’t get blood for his heartworm test because of all the thrashing, during the course of which he fattened T-Moth’s lip.  The vet thought Cobie tried to bite, but I think it’s unlikely he was he meant business.  He does this warning air-snap when crowded, and I’m betting that’s what they observed.  A guest at a party once pursued him until he hid under a lawn chair, reached in after him, and inflicted unwanted petting upon him.  His eyes rolled and his flanks heaved with stress, but he didn’t bite, or even warn.

It probably helped that she was young and female.

I once had a big goofy dog that never previously offered to bite anyone, yet who bit a pizza driver, so I would never say a given dog would never bite. I’ve been on both sides as the dog owner and the pizza driver, which is the source of my belief that any dog will bite, given the right circumstances.  So the muzzle is probably a good idea just to keep everyone safe, especially since Cobie’s teeth are enormous, rather like the rest of him.  People who feel safe probably give off calmer vibes than ones that are worried about having their face removed.

Anyway, his mommy will take him.  Kelly will go too.  And he has pills to make him happy.  I hope not too happy though, because no one wants to carry a hundred pound dog.

Three:  Someone is coming later to install one new properly grounded outlet so I can plug in the broken-ass stove Sears sold me and they will then deign to come fix the damn thing.  We discovered that only the outlet the stove is plugged into reads as reversed polarity, and then only when the stove is plugged in.  So the lack of grounding is on us, but that reverse polarity is on the stove itself.  The brand new $600 stove.

They better fix or replace that sumbitch, that’s all I’m saying.

Four:  I’m not doing NaNo.  This should not come as news.

Five:  Oliver has emerged from the wall.  He hurt his passenger side rear paw, and when I got out the cat carrier he vanished.  We had to put food near his hidey hole, the wall where he went to ground after we moved here.  It took three adults and a teenager to stuff him into the carrier to bring him here.  People bled.  I knew I would never be able to get him to a vet unless he was at death’s door.

Mind you, I don’t want Oliver dying at all, but especially not deep inside a load-bearing wall.  I put the cat carrier away.  He still wouldn’t come out except occasionally at  night.  It’s like he knew I wouldn’t take him to the vet at night.

Previously I kept Oliver’s feeding station and litter box in the utility room, and kept dogs out of there with a baby gate.  Now Oliver can’t jump the gate.  It has been a huge unending pain keeping dogs out of the cat food and litter box, especially Kelly, who is smaller than Oliver and so can get into any space he can.  She can climb gates too, but chooses not to, I think because Cobie disapproves of gate-climbing.

Aggravatingly, Oliver has resumed jumping onto the kitchen table and my desk, where he clears space for himself by flinging anything in his way onto the floor where dogs can get it, but he still won’t jump the gate.  He will walk on anyone who sits on the sofa though.  Endlessly.  Back and forth and back and forth.  Limpy, but seemingly content.  I missed his vicious butt while he was living in the wall.  I guess I’ll have to go back to clearing off the table though.  And maybe change his name to Chester.

another day

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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.

a rough night

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So I have this weenie yet butt-kicking cold, and then my back starts to hurt. It’s one of those sleep-injury pains that you wake up with occasionally once you reach a certain age. Every morning for the last three mornings my back (or maybe it’s my hip) has been a little owier than the day before. Then last night it woke me up at 3 a.m. I got up to pee–middle age sleep deprivation multi-tasking at its finest–and almost fell. Pain shot through my right hip and down my leg, which almost buckled. I was finally able to straighten and hobbled toward the bathroom. Stepping over dogs was suddenly a huge obstacle. When I sat to do do my business the pain flared brighter. When I got up, another bolt. When I returned to bed, lying down brought some relief–for perhaps 40 seconds. Then the pain started to build again. Stabby and shooty.

I gave up sleeping and read a while. After some time I started to doze. Mr Moth’s alarm went off–it sounds like a rooster crowing. Instead of turning it off, he had some kind of convulsion, like a fish dying on the beach. It felt like I might genuinely be in danger of getting bounced out of bed. Finally, finally he turned off the damn alarm…and went back to sleep.

And started to snore.

Never let it be said I have no self control. He’s still alive, right?

I read some more. Finally Mr Moth got up and went to work. I tried to use the extra bed space to find a comfortable position, and each shift brought relief but only temporary. I got up and sat on the toilet for about an hour. The seat pressed on the backs of my thighs and kind of made things worse but also eased the pain. Don’t ask how that’s possible, because I don’t know. The relief was welcome, but not sufficient. Around six a.m. I got up and took four advil. They didn’t help the pain, but maybe they helped knock me out after about another hour.

At eight-thirty some little dog started clawing my arm and whining. Making myself look bad, I harped at her to “Knock it off, dog!” But she didn’t, because she has a teeny weeny bladder, and what can she do?

Transitions are the worst moments, the rising and settling. Then the pain escalates into agony, and it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to use that word. But, dogs. I want her to tell me when she needs out, don’t I? I hauled my agonized carcass off the mattress, stood gripping the edge of the long dresser, waiting for the spasms to ease. When they did, I hobbled to the door. Then came trial by baby gate. When I went to the kitchen for advil earlier, I’d stepped over it. I almost didn’t make it back over, either. Now I bent and grabbled the pressure bar that releases the gate.

There was a noise, like tearing. And a sensation, also like tearing, and also like rippling, across that place that might be the lower back or might qualify as upper hips. And then, pain. Blinding. It’s not just hyperbole. I yelled, and swore, and cried. And somehow, stood up. Since I still had hold of the baby gate, it pulled loose. Two dogs charged around me while I stood there with stupid tears leaking down my face. I saw them dimly through a haze of eyewater and excruciation, capering toward the back door.

I couldn’t put the gate down, because that would have required me to bend over again. Hell, it would have required me to move. I honestly don’t know how I put it down. But I must have, because I see it in it’s daytime storage slot. I followed the cavorting mutts and let them out.

Fabulous, I thought, leaning on the back of a kitchen chair. Now it hurts to stand. At least yesterday I could do that. And today Zor needs transported to her final final exam, and there’s grocery shopping to do among the throngs of people too busy and important to bother being considerate or polite, or heaven forfend, patient.

I made coffee. Instant, with microwaved water, vanilla creamer, and pumpkin pie spice, which I ‘ve been using in everything since long before it became the in thing.

I check to see if dogs have chow, and thank heaven one of their dishes is still full, because feeding dogs without bending over can be done, but I’m sure I’m not up to the challenge. I let them in. I take my empty-stomach pills and start for the office. At least I can walk upright now, I think, with only minor twinges. I remember Zor telling me, “Little victories, ma,” when I was in the hospital and had successfully brushed my hair.

I come in the office, push into the Cessna-like whir of five hamster wheels going all at once, creep to the table where I set drinks (none allowed on the desk with my laptop, nuh uh, Im a klutz and have a cat) and, bracing myself, bend to set the cup down.

It doesn’t hurt.

Praise the cosmos.

I sit, and that doesn’t hurt either. Well, a little. But more on the sitting than the transitioning, and only at manageable levels. I play some Sims Social, and I’m still feeling a little spasmy at the tailbone, but not too bad. I stand up, and that barely hurts either–mostly just achy and throbby, which I’ll take over stabby and shooty any day.

So, anyone want to guess what I’m thankful for today?

whitman’s sampler

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I leave half-finished posts unposted for days, and then delete them because the topics are now old news. So here’s some random:

School
My Clock Picture for Drawing Class.

Self Portrait, ugh. The blue cast is because I took thie picture outside, I think. Afterwards I did a fingerstick, and let’s just say it’s a miracle this drawing didn’t come out even worse!

The Six Basic Shapes (for Fundamentals of Design class.) This project was more my speed: COLORING. Ha!

I haven’t received grades on any of these yet. It’s hard for me to accept that, when it comes to art, the very best I can do is–maybe–a B. Maybe that is the real lesson I need to learn at this point in my life, though. On the up side, I don’t have any trouble accepting critique, because years of writing have thickened my skin. On the down side, I still hate hate hate to give it. I don’t feel qualified, and I know other people do get their feelings hurt.

Critters
I have at least six hamster pups running around the cage and trying out the wheel. There is so much cuteness contained in such a small area, even T-Moth had to go, “Aw!” I’m fixing to move them all to a large plastic bin as soon as I figure out how to hang the water bottle. I’m on a budget, and I chose to buy an exercise wheel rather than a bottle hanger that probably wouldn’t be low enough anyway. I have another idea though…we’ll see how it works out.

Cobie and Kelly miss me, and I miss them. I’m gone a lot, and when I am home, I’m busy. I’m hoping to squeeze in some hanging-out-like-dogs on the deck time this afternoon.

I need better time-management skills.

Seriously.

Health
It’s not just the colonoscopy, or the eye exam. It’s all the hours I lose prepping for the -scopy, or half-blinded by the dialation. I can’t afford to lose that much time. My brain is not as fast as all these 18-year-olds’! Also it’s tireder. Probably the only part of my body that’s smoother now than 10 years ago.

Writing
Last Friday I went to the school’s creative writing club. I didn’t have a good feeling about it, since the club description emphasized poetry and short fiction, and well…I hardly read poetry, much less write it, and it’s been years since I popped out any short fiction. I went because Zor wanted to go, and I was obsessively avoiding an art project.

It didn’t turn out too bad. The instructor who leads the group seems to be grounded in publishing realities rather than literary snobbery (as I admit I had feared.) One of the women in the group is writing a YA F/SF novel with black protagonists. I wish I were more enthusiastic about speculative YA. Although lately I’ve been wanting to read Black and Blue Magic again for the first time in what,…30 years or better?

Mostly what I learned from the meeting is, I need to make time for writing in my life. And dogs…but also writing.

Need.

It goes back to that time management thing again.

Anyhow, as fragmented as this post feels, I’m-a hit send before I get distracted again.