I know that this new doctor has some cutting edge technique but maybe this aged milk horse would be better off in something old fashioned and possibly more functional. Why did I switch doctors anyway? Maybe somebody screwed up...
But I have scratched the crap out of this pair and I can't stare through the clouds for too much longer. Something will have to be done.
I decided that it was time to get my eyes checked again and go back to single vision. I headed down to Escondido the other day and went through the drill with the nice cheerful staff at Dr. Rose's office, getting a multiple battery of tests including blood pressure, near field, wide field, the whole gamut.
Finally I saw Dr. Rose. He started asking me to read the letters on the chart and I started getting irritated. His machine was obviously not set up properly, when I was asked to choose between good and better on my right eye, nothing worked. I could not see either option worth a damn.
"Are you sure that thing is calibrated properly?" I asked.
He said wait a second and grabbed some thigamajig with the flashing lights on the side and looked into my eye. It only took a moment.
"Darn, Robert, you've got a cataract. That's why you can't see clearly." I was in shock. I have had several fleeting vision problems but had chocked them up to this and that and never considered the presence of a cataract. I will be 56 in a week or two, that's too young for a cataract. The idea of a person of my tender age suffering an old person's disease...In my good eye, no less, the one that was always so sharp.
My 15/20 vision has now deteriorated to 20/25 corrected. For a person who relies on his eyes for his livelihood, the news, no matter how correctable, is devastating. I should have listened to my wife, who has long been on my case to wear sunglasses.
Making matters worse, he had told me on my last visit that I had the start of a cataract in my other eye, so it is only a matter of time for that one.
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Although I am not entirely sure that this new malady is self inflicted, it joins a long list of illnesses that definitely were. Anterior cruciate, medial collateral, meniscus, skiing. Other knee, karate. Chronic Active non a non b hepatitis 1973-1975, who knows? Bladder, liver and kidney cancer, poor ventilation and exposure to methyl ethyl ketone and benzene in my not sufficiently ventilated sign shop. Shoulder, Kung Fu and scrapping as a kid. I don't even want to think about the heart attack, the mitral valve failure and murmur was congenital as was the hydroseal, perforated whatchamacallit. I have clearly done a number on my self, probably derives from the Peter Pan complex if not the narcissistic megalomania. Played way too hard. Never thought I would live this long anyway, never gave any thought to a deterioration in old age.
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He says that I have a couple years before I have to deal with it but a part of me wants it fixed right now. Vision is my dominant sense and it aches and is a blow to my soul that it is now so imperfect. The doctor says that there is a really good doctor in Carlsbad. I need to go see him soon.
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Many people get cataracts, the accent mark had hers at fifty. It is a symptom of this horrible, getting older business. It has been a challenging month, that has gone reasonably well, but still this is another weight on the opposing scale that is wreaking a bit of havoc with my internal equilibrium. Not to overstate things but I am going to be cutting things very fine with the shoulder surgery.
To my friends and clients who may be reading this this, I want to publicly thank you for your help, both material and emotional, in keeping the Sommers ship afloat, past and present. Thanks to all of you that make this blog a daily part of your life. Keep sending me stuff that interests you. I will try to post it.
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