Aye, I had the Eye Shot

Thank you all for your prayers and concern. Everything went well, and the next injection is a month from today.

The preparation (eleven letters) took longer than the treatment (nine), just like those two nouns. There were yellow drops, followed by two sets of numbing drops, and a 10-minute wait for them to take effect. That’s when the amusement started. I thought the assistant said, “We’ll give you something to hold your eyelid open.”

I responded, “I HAVE TO HOLD MY EYELID OPEN????”

Hearing my disbelief, she laughed and said, “No, no! The doctor will do that FOR you.”

We both had a good laugh while my eyes were still closed. Soon she said she was ready for him. A man’s voice said, “I heard my name.”

Knowing it was Dr. Komanski, I asked, “Your name is HIM?”

He laughed and said it was better than Injection. He saw the notice sent to me that Dr. Injection Komanski would take care of me.

“Look up,” I heard. In two seconds the eye was held open by some small gizmo, which I hardly felt and couldn’t see. The assistant had a comforting hand on my shoulder as Dr. K. gave me the shot. It was over in the time it took you to read that sentence. There was a bit of pressure, but no pain. She squirted cold liquid into the eye before telling me what was on the instruction sheet she was handing me. I walked out, made the appointment, and John drove me home. Easy as could be!

Six hours later the eye feels the same as it did in the office, a little scratchy. No immediate change was expected in my vision, so I’m still wandering around in a fog. So, what else is new??

I’m Leaking

It’s official. My eye is leaking. Because of macular degeneration, fluid is leaking, which is causing the big blur in my right eye. Treatment starts in two days – injections that should keep me from going blind. Please rejoice with me. I can read no better than I did a week ago, but there is hope on the horizon. I’ve heard from several people that they are currently taking the injections that keep this condition from going wild.

An added bonus is that the retina specialist uses space in my eye doctor’s office once a week. Instead of driving 45 minutes to Asheville, we’ll go to the next town. Please rejoice with John on that.

Now for the fun. Besides reading, can you guess what routine thing is hardest for me? It’s loading my toothbrush! Depth perception is missing for close things right now. I may be walking around with bright, shiny fingers that smell minty.

My half-deaf friend called to check on me, and we had a few laughs. She said the two of us would make a good pair, one being able to see and one to hear. She is totally deaf in one ear, making conversation difficult. Perception is askew for both of us. She can’t tell where sounds are coming from, and I can’t judge distance easily.

We chatted about coping with the loss of senses. I have an app on my phone that is supposed to translate speech into words on the screen. I hear better than my phone does. She wants to learn to lip-read. You need sight for both of those things. My advice? Don’t lose more than one sense at a time.

I tried to read the title of an icon on my phone to her and had to say, “I can’t read it!”

She laughed and said mock-loudly, “I can’t hear you.”

Hopefully neither of us will get COVID and lose our sense of smell. I presume taste goes out the window with smell. We could feel food without tasting it. My advice? Hang onto your senses, since it’s hard to be without more than one.

A Blur

A week went by in a blur, a stressful blur. I didn’t mention cataract surgery in July, because it’s very common if you live long enough. Eight days after that surgery, I read a number of lines on the standard eye chart and could read a card in my hand if I held it far away. The date was July 20 when I knew the right eye was working well. Last week the second eye was done. It, too, seemed very good. I gradually came to the conclusion that the eyes didn’t seem to be working well together. Because both were set for distance vision, John helped me buy readers to help focus closeup. Reading was still very difficult. I became aware that the right eye had a spot in the middle where there was only a blur. That screamed macular degeneration to me. My dad developed that when he was about 82 years old, and he was blind for the last three or four years of his life.

On August 17 the eye surgeon could tell that my left eye was 20/25. Great! I hadn’t seen that well since I was seven years old. When my right eye looked at the chart, the only letter I could read was the very top E. The doctor said several things could cause that, so we did a scan of the retina. He put a scan done several weeks ago on the screen, along with the new scan. One was flat; the other had a big bubble in the middle. My supposition was correct. I have macular degeneration. He quickly said, “Ten years ago we could do nothing. Now there is treatment for that.”

The office made an appointment for me with a retina specialist in Asheville for Friday. John canceled his trip to the train club so he could drive me there tomorrow. I don’t know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future.

My smile isn’t broken.

We are not Flooded

John and I were out in the heavy rains yesterday, going from one doctor’s appointment to another. By late afternoon, the emergency messages began to pour into our electronic devices. There was flooding in two nearby towns, Clyde and Canton. Grandson David’s coworker couldn’t get home, so the manager took him to her own house for the night. Today neighbor Logan had no school, because all schools in the county were closed due to the flooding. We thought Jonathan Creek would be swollen this morning, but we walked there and found it was not unusually high.

We don’t think the creek overflowed anywhere in our valley. We live on a lower slope of a mountain. If water ever rose this high, it would be catastrophic, and you probably wouldn’t hear from me again. Today the weather is gorgeous – sunny with blue skies and white clouds.

England 40 Years Ago — August 11, 1981

Legoland was three-dimensional fantasy. I loved all the details – guard boxes for the Lego soldiers marching in front of the palace, delicate stairs and banisters, figures in native costume, a stave church, water locks that really worked, trains, and windmills – all made of Lego plastic building blocks. Photos only give you an idea of what the scenes look like.

[Getting a Lego driver’s license was a high point for Lisa. Kate, three years younger, did not grasp the knack of turning corners. One of these girls has spent the last 40 years laughing about it.]

The ferry from Esbjerg to Harwich is the nearest to a cruise ship I’ve ever sailed on. There was a tiny playground for children, several restaurants and spacious cabins.

Our impressions of Norway were mountains, hills water, colourful wooden houses with bright tile roofs and lovely costumes for special occaions.

Sweden has larger shopping centers and easier parking than Norway and England. We loved the word “parkering”.

Denmark is full of brick houses and old brick churches with hardly any wooden buildings. Many small houses have red tiled roofs, are almost square, and have receding foreheads for roofs. Ends that normally peak have sloping triangular ends. Transformers for electricity seemed to be housed in obelisk towers – lots of wires running to and from them. They were often metal, though sometimes of brick with a tile roof. I particularly liked a double-lane bike path.

Flowers were everywhere in Scandinavia. It gradually dawned on us that we are used to gardens in England, and that is why we didn’t at first think they had an exceptional amount. Scandinavians are more likely to have flowers in boxes and on windowsills than around the yard.

As you may have guessed by now, we had a wonderful trip. So many of the things we did, we couldn’t have done at all had John $ been with us. At the end of the trip we could look forward to seeing our little fellow with John’s sister and her family.

These photos show our two families eating breakfast, playing with trains, and getting ready to leave.

You deserve an endurance medal if you are still with me!

England 40 Years Ago — August 10, 1981

At Aarhus we walked through the open air museum of old houses which had been taken apart and reassembled, coming from all over Denmark. It was something like Mystic Seaport or Williamsburg.

Open air museum of old buildings from Denmark

A prehistory museum had artifacts from the stone age and up. We were most impressed with the well-preserved man who had lived about the time of Christ. His throat had been slit, and he was thrown in a peat bog where the tanic acid kept his body in such shape that scientists could identify the seeds he’d eaten just before he died.

In Odense we lost all track of time reading all the labels in the Hans Christian Anderson museum. The poor fellow was indigent when young, fell in love three times, but never married, and lived most of his life staying with well-to-do people who befriended him. He repaid his hosts by entertaining them with stories, giving them his drawings, and cutting fancy paper shapes for them.

We saw the cathedral in Odense and discovered an organ concert scheduled for that evening. We ate at our motel, then went to hear the largest church organ in Denmark. Beautiful.

For dinner at the motel John and I had plaice fillets bonne femme with onion and mushroom sauce, boiled potatoes and home made ice cream with fruit sauce.

David and John to the Rescue

This incident is amusing to me now, but it wasn’t at the time. My phone was in my hand when it rang. Although I could read nothing on the screen, I hit the right area and was talking to the doctor who had removed my second cataract that morning. He called to ask how I was, and I blurted out something one should never say to an eye surgeon, “I can’t see!”

I should have said I can’t read, or more specifically, I can’t see to read. Perhaps he is used to people being overly dramatic, because he asked if I had any pain. I had the correct answer to that – none.

I could see things at a distance, which was exactly as it should be. I could read ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. That, too, should have been expected, but it was a rude shock. I wanted to let daughters Lise and Kate know that the surgery was successful. I guessed the placement of the icon on the phone for texting, but I couldn’t pick out individual names. John got one for me and touched the microphone icon so that I could dictate. If you’ve ever dictated to a phone, you know it is fraught with danger. It maliciously substitutes bizarre words. Somehow I think we got the news to Kate, and Lise called when she got the initial statement.

I was not prepared for the almost total despair that came over me. How could I get through the rest of the week with grandson David and son John $pencer working and John away for the weekend? If important notices came on the phone or computer, I wouldn’t be able to see them. Deleting spam would be impossible. There would be no writing or commenting on blog posts.

David saved the day, suggesting I get readers found in many stores. I had forgotten that Kate pointed toward a rack of readers in Walmart. David mentioned Dollar General, and we would pass four of them on the way home from the doctor’s office the next morning. John was a life-saver, reading the labels and helping me try them on. At the first store we found a pair of sunglasses with clear glass on the top and lenses for reading on the bottom. The second store had a greater selection of plain readers. I don’t know that I picked the best ones, but I can see the phone and monitor now. In about a month the eyes will have settled enough that I can get new prescription glasses.

England 40 Years Ago — August 9, 1981

We arrived at the cathedral outside Copenhagen in time to hear the service going on and find all the doors securely closed. Felt as if the bridegroom came and we missed him.

In Odense we went to a railway museum which Kate and John thoroughly enjoyed. I saw a waiting room bench I’d like to have taken home; it was painted green and decorated with gold crowns.

Upon arrival in Aarhus, we settled in our fairly spacious room and headed for the restaurant. The motel itself was dinky looking from outside and didn’t prepare us for the exquisite restaurant. The service was French style, the most elegant we had on the whole trip. The food was marvelous – and at that, we weren’t sure what we were getting. The menu was in Danish; the waiter could speak little English and knew few names of foods to describe them to us. I finally asked him what he liked best and ordered that. Turned out to be a thick pork chop with sauce, pineapple slices and water cress served with rice and two little pots of sauces. John had chopped steak covered with onions, and the girls a kind of beef stew. This was also the most expensive meal of the trip.

My jaw dropped when I noticed the hand basin in the motel bathroom – it boasted the first built in metal stopper that we have seen in all Europe. The last one we used was in Stony Brook more than a year ago!

The toilets come in all sizes – or rather, heights. The family room in Sweden with bunk beds had a very low toilet in the bathroom, probably for the benefit of small children. I always wondered half way down if I were aiming right. The toilet in Copenhagen was Just Right, and the one in Aarhus should have been equipped with a step stool.

It afforded much merriment in the car at the Danish word for entrance – infart. Exit – outfart, and a town we passed near – Middlefart. A bus of tourists was labeled right on the front – Tourisfart.

I took the photo below at some point in the trip. We must have been about to board a ferry and found this scene amusing. As cars waited, a petrol cart worked the line. How convenient to have your tank filled when you were forced to sit in your car!

England 40 Years Ago — August 8, 1981

Breakfast in the hotel in Copenhagen was a buffet of cold cuts, cheeses and tasty Danish pastries – the real thing!

We were staying near the palace and walked by to see the guards walking. Every quarter hour they click their heels, fold their arms across their chests to hold their guns, and stroll around. They don’t have the rigid discipline of the English guards.

A ride in a harbor boat brought us to the little mermaid statue.

On the walk back to the hotel we saw old row houses built for seamen in the 1600’s. [Lise said this was near her bus stop when she worked in a building near the Little Mermaid.]

European cities have public toilets galore and places to buy expensive sodas on every other corner, but no water fountains! We got so thirsty walking around on dry, hot days, but didn’t want to lug heavy water around all the time.

We found an ad for a 100% Danish restaurant that welcomes children and was within walking distance. There was even a children’s menu! – unheard of in England at a good restaurant. Kate chose chicken; Lise, beef, and John and I fried fish. His had Bearnaise sauce, and I had the sauce with shrimp and asparagus again.

Birds were on the table when we sat down; their calling cards prompted us to request cleaning of the tablecloth. The waiter solved the problem to HIS satisfaction by cheerfully turning the dirty cloth over.

Wrapping up a Marvelous Visit

The highlight of the day featured low light on one of daughter Kate’s last days here. John, Kate, grandson David, and I went up on the Blue Ridge Parkway hoping to catch a gorgeous sunset. It was far from spectacular, but we used our phones/cameras, anyway.

This was my best shot.

There is only one photo from the most fantastic day of Kate’s visit. Son John $pencer took her and David to Lake Logan, where they went out in two canoes. $ was the only one with a phone, because the other two were not willing to risk their new phones on the water. Wise move. There isn’t much to show for their exciting adventure, but their memories are stellar.

A morning walk is exciting enough for us older folks. Thankfully, the animals came out to greet Kate to add sparkle to the morning.

We shopped at two stores that Kate does not have in New Jersey and went on the parkway once more in daylight. The night seemed short, because all too soon she was in her car going home. The drive will take 14 or 15 hours. We have wonderful memories of her week’s visit, the only regret being that we live so far away.