For the first time in over a year I actually tried sewing and it worked. I only mended a blouse but I could see the stitches and operate the machine. I think I was afraid to try so that’s all I’m doing today. I do have things to do, embroidery to do but I haven’t chosen designs yet. I looked at them but was slightly intimidated. Colors look different on the color palettes but the threads looked right in person. That’s a start. Words and numbers are still somewhat off kilter depending on their angles. Sometimes my check register looks like a 3rd grader wrote in it. Sometimes it looks totally normal. Go figure. I never expected cataract surgery to go so wrong. Everybody in my family had cataract surgery with no issues. Why did I have to be the exception to the rule?
I’ve been told that I’ve made all the progress I can expect in my healing. I can expect to always be on prescription steroid eye drops and to be monitored by the retina specialist for the rest of my life because of that medication. Some days my vision seems clear then with no notice it blurs. Bright light feels like it’s stabbing me in the eye and I have optical migraines for the first time in my life, usually caused from going out in the sunlight without shades. I was promised 20-20 vision without glasses. Instead I’ve spent part of the past year blind or nearly blind in my left eye. At first it was black. Then cloudy. No peripheral vision for the first month or so after I got my sight back. Then a second surgery gave me vision without the clouds but with blurriness. I hate to be ungrateful, because I can at least function, but I’m so disappointed and that’s hard to get over.
Recently I realized that I’d stopped living at all. I was relegated to a recliner and a television, cuddling dogs, with no life to speak of. Is that all there is? I asked. I thought about it several days. Alternatives? Options? Three years ago my mother died and we had to deal with the details…and there were a lot. I was stressed out for a long time. Then we moved and sold the old house and before we got the new house organized I had eye surgery. I never expected that I’d spend a year just getting over that. So I still can’t find anything at the new house; I can’t see worth a damn; I’m older and less fit; 2 of the dogs have passed away and I’m in the depths of depression. Lovely.
But COVID has come and gone. We lost my brother-in-law; my sister has had 2 strokes and has retired. My only aunt passed away which leaves me the second-eldest in the family. Those still left are pseudo-healthy and still kicking so all is not lost. It could be worse, right? DH and I are healthy and happy. We don’t have any money issues like a lot of folks now. The dogs are still healthy and happy. So what else do I want? Like a million other people I just want to be happy. I just don’t know what that looks like anymore. Today is a start. Tomorrow will be Day Two.
Texas Lady 