Today, I can't even see the big E on the eye chart, but tomorrow.....

Today I go in for Lasik eye surgery to correct my ridiculously near-sighted vision. I have wanted to have this done for years, but it's always been too expensive. Well, too expensive to justify spending THAT much money on just me for something I didn't HAVE to have since I could see just fine with my contact lenses. But a few years ago, my astigmatism in my right eye became bad enough that I could no longer see clearly with just a distance vision correcting lens in it. I needed a toric lens.

I had worn a toric lens in my right eye about 15 years ago with no problem, but when it "wore out", I returned to just normal soft lenses because torics were so expensive back then and I could see well enough without the astigmatism correction. That was no longer the case. Unfortunately, this time around I could not find a toric lens that would sit straight on my eye to save my life. I went through five different brands and two or three variations in each model, and each time, the lens would rotate about 5 degrees. That left me constantly rubbing my eye in an attempt to get the lens back into position. After struggling with this for over a year, I gave up. I started wearing my glasses to work and left wearing my contact lenses for the weekends. I hate wearing glasses. I haven't worn them regularly since getting my first pair of soft contact lenses in the summer of 1973.

I remember the day vividly. I lived at home. It was the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college. I was heading to UC Santa Barbara in the fall after a year at junior college in Santa Maria. I remember I had to go to Santa Barbara to get them for some reason - probably because podunk Santa Maria didn't have doctors who gave them out yet. Part of the plan for the day was to tour the UCSB campus. I remember that when the lenses were first inserted in my eyes, it felt like I had a hair in my eye for just a few seconds. As soon as my eyes teared up a bit, I couldn't feel them at all. I also remember walking around on campus amazed at how clearly I could see the leaves on the eucalyptus trees, and how cool it was to have vision that was not boxed in by frames. I took to soft lenses like a duck to water. From that day on, I did not wear glasses again, except briefly upon arising or just before retiring for the night. For the past 20 years or so, I haven't even owned a pair of glasses. But now, I wear them daily once again.

A few months ago, my son-in-law's sister had Lasik done in Spokane. The price was an amazingly inexpensive $1,000. That was a figure I could handle, especially since I have $450 in a health benefits spending account I have to use by the year's end or lose. I made an appointment for a consultation for myself and my daughter, who is also as blind as a bat, minus the astigmatism. Last Thursday, we both went for the exam. While I have pretty typical eyes and can have the normal Lasik procedure, she has thin corneas and will have to have either a different kind of Lasik or PRK. She will find out which today. At 1:00 PM today, I will be in the doctor's office preparing for my Lasik surgery. By 4:00 PM today, I should be able to see better than I've seen since I was a little kid. My only concern is how bad my presbyopia will be after surgery. I have the option of having monovision done - they correct your dominant eye for distance and leave your other eye uncorrected so you can read without glasses - but I'm not sure I would like that. You do lose some depth perception and it takes a couple of weeks to a month for your brain to fully adapt. I'll talk to the doctor today. Regardless, I WILL see without glasses after surgery today. I can hardly believe it, and I can hardly wait! My daughter goes in for her surgery on October 7. She, at least, won't need reading glasses for years. I wish I'd been able to have this done years ago so I could have enjoyed years of glasses free vision, but to be able to wake up and see, to see in the middle of the night, to be able to go in the water and not worry about losing a contact lens - I can't even tell you how exciting that is.

So.... tomorrow I will try to post and give you the scoop on what it's like post-Lasik.

The end of days - and post #203

Gosh, this is my 203rd post! I didn't even notice when I hit number 200. Of course, that's a small number of posts compared to some of my more prolific bloggy friends, but considering my workload, well, it's not too bad.

It's painfully apparent that summer is drawing quickly to a close. The weather isn't the giveaway, though. It's the absence of the sun at times when, in the very near past, it has normally hung high in the sky. I really noticed it this morning when The Spouse left for work. Usually, I can see his car just fine as I stand at the kitchen window waving goodbye. This morning, the sun had yet to peek above the horizon. The sky was almost still dark, and he needed his headlights. That was at 6:00 AM.

Wasn't it just last week that the sun was waking me up at 5:00 AM as it blasted through the bedroom window? It seems like it. Even now, at 7:50 AM, the sun is just barely above the tops of the 20 foot tall trees in the neighbor's yard. And it has moved into a more southerly position in the sky, as opposed to the very easterly one it occupies all summer long. And last night after work, as I mowed the lawn, I found myself doing so in growing darkness, barely finishing the front yard before it became too dusky to see where I'd mowed and where I needed to mow. By 7:30 PM it was too dark to continue. Not that it was actually dark, mind you. It was just not bright enough to continue mowing. In another week, it will be too dark by 7:00 PM.

The color of the sun's light has changed too, especially the afternoon light. It has taken on that autumn glow that signals the trees to change color, and evokes an innate sense of urgency and impending change in many of us. It has a more golden color to it, as opposed to the white-hot color of the July sun. The summer sun invites us to languish in it, to soak it in, to relax and take it easy. The autumn sun urges us to hurry, to organize, prepare, complete projects, stock our cupboards. It whispers to us, reminding us that winter is just around the corner; and no amount of tweaking of daylight savings time will stop its arrival. But between summer and winter is autumn, harvest, the season of change. I'm looking forward to the apple harvest festivals this region holds each year, to college football games, to Parents' Weekend at Youngest Son's college, to the end of mowing season, to the gorgeous, crisp sunny days when the sky is as blue as a topaz, and the mountains to the east stand out in relief against it. I will miss summer, but I am ready for fall, and it's getting nearer day by day.

Weight loss update

So, amazingly and surprisingly, I've started losing weight again. What I mean is, despite my best efforts over the past few months, I was fighting a losing battle against my weight. I'd lose three or four pounds, only to gain them back even more quickly. Over the past few weeks, I started trying more diligently to watch my diet. I was rewarded with a loss of a few pounds that stayed off. Then, this past week, I found myself losing about half a pound a day, to my utter astonishment. The net result is that I have lost about 17 pounds over the past 4 or 5 months! I still have 20 to go to get to where I was when Youngest Son went off to college in 2004, the weight at which I'd been "stuck" for a few years, and 35 to get to my ideal weight, a goal I haven't achieved since 1998, but I have a renewed hope that I can actually achieve those goals now. Anyone who has fought their weight understands how good it feels to achieve a goal, even a little, interim one, and how motivating that can be. My boss has lost about 40 pounds in the last couple of months, thanks to a renewed dedication to Weight Watchers. His success is what spurred me to work harder at my own weight loss, coupled with a concern for my health and fitness, which has always been excellent, but which was being negatively impacted by my weight. So.... a little success, with hopefully more to come!

9/11

Every morning, while getting ready for work, The Spouse turns on the news. Today, of course, it's all about September 11. I keep getting all choked up. Regardless of your thoughts about the president, the war in Iraq, or anything else, I suspect we all share similar feelings about that awful day. One thing that makes me sad is remembering how united we all were on that day, and the days following, and contrasting it with the climate in this country today. We weren't Republicans and Democrats, we weren't black, white, asian, or hispanic, we were just Americans who shared a national grief. And most of the world grieved with us. But today there is so much division, so much name-calling, so many doubts, so much second-guessing. And so much of the world looks upon us with disdain. It makes me sad. But then, I've never been one to handle division and conflict very well. I want peace and unity. I'm an idealist, I know.

Last Vacation of the Summer - Take Two

Note: I had a really great, long post written, and blogger ate it. All I could recover is what follows...not even half of my post. I am too aggravated to rewrite it now. In summary, we painted the garage doors too, which was a project in itself, and moved Youngest Son back to school on Labor Day. I did some long overdue transplanting of stuff, of which I took photos and might post about separately when I get over being peeved at blogger. For now, read what blogger didn't eat. Grrrrr!

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My last vacation of the summer is over. I am back at work. Oddly, I missed being at work when I was off. What does that say about me? Maybe it just says a lot about my job.

The week off was a busy one, as I said it would be. We successfully accomplished the power-washing and restaining of our deck (photos to follow), with the assistance of daughter and son-in-law, who came over one afternoon to help us get the project completed in at least half the time it would have taken the two of us alone. We repaid them with a BBQ dinner of tri-tip, roasted peppers and zucchini, green salad with tomatoes fresh from my dad's garden, and Italian bread, with ice cream for dessert. During the meal, Grandson, age 5, was stung by a wasp - the second time in as many days. The yard seemed to be infested with the darned things, and Grandson appears to be a wasp magnet. I have the magic potion, though, that stops the swelling and the pain almost immediately - Adolph's meat tenderizer dissolved in a bit of water, applied with a cotton ball to the sting and held in place for several minutes. Grandson is convinced Grammy is magic. Meanwhile, Poppy and Dad are out spraying wasps with "dead on contact" spray, knocking down wasp nests from hidden places, and stomping them to bits. Turns out there was a huge wasp's nest right next to the swingset on a post used to hold up the tarp covering our boat. Grandson was swinging when the first sting came - on his face next to his mouth. The second sting came while sitting on our wrought iron picnic table eating dinner. The little yellow striped buggers had made nests in each of the four open-ended pipes that made up the legs of the table - right under Grandson's seat. Lucky kid.

Once the staining was finished, it was on to the trim. The deck is 800 square feet of cedar with slate blue fascia and railings that are a combination of slate blue, white vinyl lattice, and white vinyl handrails. All the blue trim had to be painted - carefully so as not to get any paint on the newly stained deck surface. You have no idea how much work that involved. Backbreaking work that could only be done after 2PM when shade hits the deck. Spouse did 95% of it. All I did was get the small art brush and do the places that were too small or precise for his big brush. (subsequent paragraphs gobbled by blogger)