macular degeneration, macular, diagnosis Attitude Adjustment – My Macular Degeneration Journey/Journal

Attitude Adjustment

Alrightee then. End of feeling sorry for myself…for now. When the horse throws you off, you get back on and all that. It is attitude adjustment time.

Counting my ‘positive pennies’ the first half of today has been good. I tried my gown on this morning and it fit. That is a positive. I picked it up for $25 two years ago at the thrift store. It is actually a pretty gown for $25. This evening my gown and I go to the Mom Prom.

My husband dropped me off on the other side of those two, scary main roads and I rode my bike the rest of the way in to Zumba at the Y. Then I rode into town, chained my bike at the library and went to the street fair.

Since my class was putting on a demonstration, I participated. Participation is often a good thing. Afterwards I wandered around, ate fresh-cut fries and a chocolate brownie (we have discussed my dietary shortcomings; haven’t we?) Also ran into several people I know.

Back on the bike for the ride home. Coming home I passed a whole hedge of lilac bushes. I could have stood there all day and taken in the fragrance.

All told not at all bad start to my day. I may have age-related macular degeneration and central vision loss but I can still savor chocolate brownies and smell the lilacs. Oh, and they had this great group that does Chicago and Al Jarreau and all sort of music from our youth (assuming you are also on the upward side of 60!) The lead singer is excellent. I enjoyed their performance.

Attitude adjustment. Just like the three most important things in real estate are location, location, location, it appears the three most important things in keeping yourself mentally healthy with AMD are attitude, attitude, attitude.

I found a 2005 study by Jennifer Tolman et al. The study was on psychosocial adaptation to vision loss. Also on adaptation’s relationship to depression. Tolman and her people discovered it really is basically a matter of acceptance and compensation for vision loss. It is the internal experience that really counts. You know: if you believe you can’t, you can’t. If you believe you won’t, you won’t. Ya gotta believe in the possibilities in your life.

Tolman published the Adaptation to Vision Loss Scale (AVL) in her article. It consists of about 24 yes/no questions. Many of them have to do with self and personal power. It is interesting to look through. If you take it and find yourself answering as if you are powerless and/or have lost yourself, you might want to consider getting some help. Depression is a possibility.

Another thing she found related to depression was making use of services and adaptive technology, etc. I see that as a chicken and the egg sort of thing. Services make you less depressed but you have to have the motivation to go look first.

So that is pretty much it. We all have our setbacks. We just cannot wallow too long. Sometimes it is time for an attitude adjustment.

written April 29th, 2017

Next: Cheap Entertainment

Home