February 06, 2010
Posted by: david : Category:
event
Okay, technically it was seven years ago yesterday since it is past midnight. What happened back then? I had a trabeculectomy on my left eye. It was my twelfth glaucoma operation and first since 20 May 1980. Maybe I should have put off that surgery. Since that trab in 2003, I have not seen better than 20/100 (and that was only for a span of about eight months.) Before the surgery I was about 20/80. A little better on some days and a little worse on others. I was able to read the mail by myself. Well, I wasn’t by myself. Our dog Zamboni, would sit next to me while I went through it.
There were plenty of other things I could do then that I miss terribly now. I still love sports, I just can’t participate anymore. I used to go to about 30 Flyers games a season. Even then I couldn’t see the puck, but I could follow the game and enjoyed going. I’ve been to three since 28 January 2003. That date was the last home game before my surgery. It was the last game I “saw” (and it was a bad game — a 3-0 loss to Tampa Bay.) I’ve been to two Phillies games at Citizens Bank Park, one this past season when they played Baltimore (and lost 6-5.) A friend had two extra tickets and Jane wanted to go (it was her first Phils game, but her second O’s game.) It was great seeing her get into the game and get excited, and I enjoyed spending time with my friend and his son. As far as the game went, I pretended like I knew what was going on, but I didn’t.
My whole life was about trying to maintain my vision. Glaucoma cannot be fixed or reversed. I remember as a kid I used to ask my eye doctor if anything new had been developed that could improve my vision. The answer then is the same as it is now: not yet. Maybe some day. On that day back in 2003, we tried. It just didn’t work out the way we hoped.
May 07, 2009
Posted by: david : Category:
Uncategorized
Okay, so I haven’t updated in five months. I’ve had a bunch of stuff going on. Here it is in a nutshell… We scrambled to find a new space for our business (Salon Supplies + Interiors – www.ForMySalon,) which we finally did about a week before our old lease expired (5 Feb 2009 – yeah, we didn’t even have until the end of the month.) We moved our business the week of 2 Feb. It took us the next two weeks to unpack and set up the soft goods (shampoos, perms, hair color, etc) and another couple of weeks to set up our showroom. Our days were long and free time non-existant. We only closed for four days during that stretch. Ken and I (mostly Ken) have been working hard to get ForYourSalon.com up and running. Eliz has tried to manage both the store and our homelife — delivering salon supplies, taking the kids to school, payroll, soft good orders, etc. No wonder we both (and the kids too) were wiped-out by some flu like thing in mid-March (and without the luxury or the ability to take a day or two off, it probably took a little longer to get rid of whatever it is we had.)
Okay, enough about other stuff. I started this blog to rant about my No. 1 frustration: my eye sight. Here’s where I’m at now… I am able to read on the computer with reading glasses (I never in my life thought I’d be able to walk into a drug store and purchase glasses for under $20…) I still have to enlarge the text two or three Apple +’s, but I’ve kind of accepted it. The readers also help me see larger printed materials (newspaper headlines, etc.) Officially, my vision still stands at 20/200 in my left eye and hand motion at a foot in the right. (My right eye has been a lost cause since the day I was born, so I’m STILL ready and willing to take part in some sort of crazy experiment to help me see with it.) It doesn’t seem likely that my vision will improve much more than where it is currently. I have been refracted twice with virtually no improvement. We will try again in a month or two. I am not happy.
Here comes the rant…
Three of my thirteen eye surgeries have occurred since I was 15 (1980, 2003, 2008.) Before each one, I was very excited to have the procedures (two trabs, one partial cornea transplant) done because I thought my vision would be improved greatly. The 1980 trab was successful and it didn’t reduce my vision (though it didn’t improve it either.) The 2003 trab was successful in reducing my IOP, but I went from reading the 20/100 line to the 20/200 line. The 2008 partial cornea transplant was successful in removing the bad endothelia and replacing it with a good (but 25 years older than me) endothelia. My vision is no longer cloudy, but I still can only read the 20/200 line. It looks clearer than it did a year ago, but I still have trouble seeing TV, movies, sporting events, peoples faces, and just about anything else. I was hoping to get to 20/100 and from what both my cornea specialist and my local ophth said, it seemed possible. I had great fantasies of having a catch with my daughter as she worked on her softball pitching mechanics, throwing a football around with whoever, going to a Phillies game, Flyers game, Eagles game, or soccer friendly between two of Europe’s best teams and actually see what is going on. I’d take tons of pictures with my camera and mess around with them in Photoshop. All of those will have to wait, if I can ever do it at all. My biggest problem is trying to get past the frustration and find something else that I do like to do. I just can’t seem to move forward. Got any ideas?
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