Friday, August 30, 2013

Cataract Surgery....it's easy and painless....

 The day before cataract surgery, I couldn’t remember my phone number and realized that I was nervous. That’s like the story someone told me about going to a medical conference and hearing a speaker say, “I must be nervous. I just took a valium.” I’m like that in the slow-reaction department. Why bother to feel anything since it’s just going to get worse. But I hadn’t bothered to feel anything before the operation since it wouldn’t do any good…

It was getting dark in here and a bit smudgy. I could no longer drive legally at night and it was inevitable. James, who I never manage to correspond with, much as I want to, said to do it five or six months ago. That was when the optometrist suggested that it was time to introduce me to a surgeon. But I wasn't ready.


The operating room was cold, but the process was interesting and the surgeon was willing to describe what I might be seeing…caused by the intensity of the light. I saw three small pink circles in a field of changing color, orange, lavender, green, orange again. Sometimes the dots moved, revealing black as if there was a mask underneath them. Later, when he was taking out the actual cataract, the field was pale gray with white crackles…and I knew when he was putting in the lens because of the extremely narrow lines of white light… 

The nurse had spoken to her supervisor and I had to delete all the photographs I took that included any patients or staff…she stood behind me after the operation and watched, to make sure. But I kept a few blue elbows, which didn’t seem to bother her.

Waiting with all the other people waiting, some older than me, some a bit younger, men and women, the men looking more sprightly, strange as that seems, took far longer than the operation did……….a long time sitting there, trying to write about years ago when I had my toe nail taken off and was in a New York hospital near women with serious problems…a mastectomy, an amputation. And was certain I’d die from the anesthesia. I didn’t. I’ve heard so many stories about how easy this cataract experience is and that when it’s over, it’s over. Never again in that eye. Cataracts don’t redevelop.

I must have been nervous, though, in spite of what I thought because I went to the wrong office for my next morning after-inspection. You are not allowed to make any important decisions for 24 hours after the surgery. This wasn’t a decision and not all that different in terms of mistakes than I do make – arriving an hour too early or too late or on the wrong day. But it was a first for a wrong office, the one in Boston rather than Cambridge.   Oh, well. The surgeon, an incredibly pleasant man, didn’t mind my taking photographs. Many eye doctors are also photographers, though of a very refined and classical bent. Landscapes that are perfectly in focus and beautifully printed.

Now my left eye sees everything in a heavy tinge of light. Whites are really white. My right eye still gives a yellow tinge. Yesterday when I visited friends, their house was yellow when seen with one eye and a very pale, pale yellow, verging on white, when seen with the new lens. I can’t imagine how awful all the photographs I’ve lightened recently must look….  oh, well…






I have to go back next Thursday. And it is difficult to be on the backside with the left eye protected by gauze. I have to find another solution by the time Layla Jane gets taken to her new home on Friday.

Friday, August 23, 2013

 I should, there is that word, should, get up and go to the garden, water the spinach I planted a week or more ago...but that means getting in the car for the umpteenth time today. So, I didn't and remembered that I actually have a blog which I've paid absolutely no attention to since April....

But here's Dolly. She's been Shirley's project and is coming along nicely, thank you. So, she's gone from a pet who I actually enjoyed...to approaching the status of a racehorse which is not as friendly a creature. But she's still gorgeous. I wish she was her old flopping self and hadn't improved so nicely into the profession she was born to...but there you go, that's what happens when a good trainer gets going.

The good accident is happening upon a woman who has  just purchased a Thoroughbred who she will take into her next life and I've been able to video the process of them getting acquainted before the horse leaves the stalls and takes off to a more elegant life. This filly has always been treated gorgeously, so the new owner is not getting a problem horse who needs a lot of work until she becomes secure.

It was rather an accident that I ended up video taping the folks who breed and buy the horses, but I feel into two interesting projects last summer...and here I am, drowning in material.   It's exciting. And I'm glad. But I bought a new video camera. And that meant a new editing program. And that's connected to my new computer, a desktop that I bought almost a year ago, but still don't know how to use properly. Besides, it has it's own technical problems that have been fixed once.   Etc.   I've got great new material and a mountain of technical information to absorb.    

A good space to be in.
And a bad one that just means I have to put one foot in front of the other and get to it.

I'm certain that if I were at the garden, I wouldn't have another squash that's been eaten by what most people seem to think is a woodchuck. My squash plant, singular, probably will decide not to have any more zuchs. My tomatoes, though they are sickly looking, are still prolific and I would have liked to have a couple with my pita and hummus. But, there you go...they are there and I am here.

I've done most of the dishes. And could vacuum. And do more sorting because the decluttering will start again in the fall when it's not so hot upstairs and the track is close to closing for the season and I've had my eyes fixed so that it's not so dark inside my head and I can drive again at night....