Curiosity 92: Health matters

On Wednesday, I'm having cataract surgery—which will remove the lens of my right eye and replace it with an artificial lens. After that, I'll have pretty good distance vision, and I'll need glasses for reading. Okay. Better than now, when I have pretty good distance vision in my left eye only, and I still need glasses for reading. At the moment, my left eye is doing all the work.

Over twenty years ago, I had Lasik surgery, which changed the shape of my corneas to give me 20/40 vision after four decades of extreme myopia—corrected for much of that time (as an adult) by hard contact lenses. One day atop the three-pitch Monkey Face climb at Smith Rock in Oregon, the wind was up and whipping the straps on my backpack around and into my face, when whoop, out popped a contact. We still had a long rappel and then a many-mile hike back to our vehicle, and I was basically one-eyed. At that moment, I knew I was willing to submit myself to the gods of ophthalmology.

Well, the Lasik worked just fine until a couple of years ago, but now my right eye is blurry like it used to be. And so: I'm off to surgery again. Everyone I know who's had the procedure blesses science: the glory of sight! I hope I'll be lucky as well. Though of course, I'm a little nervous. It's my vision we're talking about. I rely on my vision for, well, everything I know about making my way in the world. Editing and proofreading, for starters. Photography. Parsing the colors of my immediate landscape. Reading—though I know so many books are recorded; but I can't listen to books-on-tape: my attention wanders. The green and blue and brown of my cats' and dog's and husband's eyes.

So yeah, I'm hoping all goes well. Naturally. 

Meanwhile, I visited my GP this morning to go over some recent bloodwork (high cholesterol, so what else is new), and we got to chatting—because he asked how I was doing—about the knot in my shoulder blade. Which led to a lovely hour with a massage therapist this afternoon.

And I've now got an appointment for late May to see if there's calcium buildup around my heart (thanks to that high cholesterol).

And two new bottles of Vitamin D (for the price of 1).

As a rule, I try to stay away from doctors. But today I can say: I am so taking care of myself.

And as a reward: a pint of Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge. I also believe in rewarding myself. Absolutely!