macular degeneration, macular, diagnosis They Get My Goat – My Macular Degeneration Journey/Journal

They Get My Goat

Every once in awhile things just GET me. They get my goat – wherever the devil THAT saying came from! They get my goat ‘real bad’. [Lin/Linda: the origin of “get my goat” is at the end of this page.]

It apparently wasn’t enough my left scotoma got denser. I have been handling that – sort of. When I am waiting for a ride to class or walking the dog I have been checking it out and it is pretty opaque now.

I think that action is the visual equivalent of poking at a sore tooth – another old chestnut – and probably not good.

However I think I have discovered something doing it. If I want to see if, for example, a flowering bush disappears, and I want to look at said bush, I focus on a point nearby. I have to consciously put my poor, beat-up fovea on the bush to make it disappear. To me that means eccentric viewing has become a habit. There is at least one positive!

The second thing that has been happening is the weather. It has been raining for days. I am not only tired of the rain, I am just plain tired. There are biological reasons for it. Darkness leads to the production of melatonin and melatonin makes you sleepy. The problem really comes, though, when I am trying to drag myself through that melatonin fog and actually function.

School was Sleepwalker Central yesterday. Yawn.

Wondering if reduced light hitting the retina – or more precisely less retina to detect that light – would lead to being more sleepy. Can I expect to have less energy in the future? No one ever seems to have answers for my questions!

The other issue is people are driving me crazy! While there are people I am dealing with to whom I want to scream “Think! Can you do that? Think!” I am particular peeved with – one more time – the transportation company! Last week I was picked up at 4:55 for a 6:15 class.

This morning I was picked up at 7:05 to be to work at 8:30. Really!?!?!?! What do they think I am going to do when I am 1.5 hours early? Twiddle my thumbs?

I guess what insults me more than anything is the implication (I perceive) my time is not important. “Oh, she is just a visually impaired old lady. She doesn’t have anything better to do.” ‘They’ would say not.’They’ would say it has to work that way because it is a shared ride. I would not believe ‘they’.

Of course, my mind spins out to decades wasted riding the van or getting places obscenely early. I do the math. It would only take 16 days of 1.5 hours wasted to have squandered a day of my life! How dare they?

Problem is, this is my new reality. I bum rides from just about everyone I know but sometimes I get stuck riding transportation. It is what it is.

Tonight I got to the Y slightly more than a half an hour early. I walked to the cash machine and got some much needed cash. One job done. Maybe it is up to me to make sure my time is not being wasted.


About the phrase “get my goat”, dictionary.com says “This expression comes from a tradition in horse racing. Thought to have a calming effect on high-strung thoroughbreds, a goat was placed in the horse’s stall on the night before the race. Unscrupulous opponents would then steal the goat in an effort to upset the horse and cause it to lose the race.”

written May 10th, 2017

Next: Caveat Emptor

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