Here we go, Forward to the Past, number last. 100 days give or take since everything went to hell with my vision. Am I where I want to be? Not by a long shot. Rolling back the clock to a time I had decent sight would be great. But then I would have to go through all the crap again so I think I will pass.
Where am I? Doing OK. Not great. Not awful but OK. I am healthy. I am taking care of myself physically. Important because as grandmother used to say, “if you don’t have your health…” I take my medication. After all, for its size, your eye has a very large number of blood vessels.
Even if they are not really sure if high blood pressure has an effect on AMD, I should take my blood pressure medication just in case.
I also have to stay healthy for the clinical trials. For example, I got bit by a tick the other week. For those of you not living in the Great Northeast, I need to say our ticks carry a nasty little thing called Lyme Disease. It is a chronic, debilitating infection. Chronic, debilitating infection equals no immunosuppressant equals no clinical trial. I was up to the walk-in clinic for prophylactic antibiotics so fast it would have made your head spin. Keep the option of trying for a cure open.
I exercise. Great thing exercise. It is the closest thing I know to a panacea. Good for what ails you mind and body.
Mind? No matter how many of you think I have lost my mind, things aren’t too bad in that department either. Not depressed and no – thank God! – panic attacks. I practice what I preach and try to keep the demons at bay. The future? If I have to go there, I go channeling Pollyanna, humming “My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.” Better to be mindful of the present though.
Worrying about what might happen can screw up a perfectly good day.
I am working. Not always easy but I am trying to make it work. No one has yet had to “have a talk” with me so I think things are OK. I made people promise we would discuss my professional future honestly if things were not good.
Keeping busy doing something I like and making money. Score!
Friends? Yeah. Good friends being good supports. Husband driving Miss Susie and being a rock about it. Making better friends with people I only knew casually before. It is sort of strange but I think you might associated with a ‘better class’ of people when you have a handicap. The selfish, surly type run the other way. The ‘classy’ ones come to help.
I offer this synopsis not as a measuring stick but as a reason for hope. We all have our own journeys and we take them at our own paces. I am blessed to have been given many gifts and I may have made my journey thus far at a pace that some of you find a little daunting. That is not the point. This is not a race, it is a journey.
The point is: there is light at the end of the tunnel. You can get there. Things can get better.