6/12/23

Today is Monday. I left home at 9 AM and got back to the house at 3:30 PM. I went from one appointment to another, to another, etc. My first appointment was the dentist. I haven’t had my teeth cleaned for 2 1/2 years, but since I’ve been off blood thinners for a week now, my oncologist said it was safe. I was supposed to tell them to be very careful and try and not make me bleed. Well, I bled like a stuffed pig anyway, so, cross your fingers for no infections.  He said my teeth looked absolutely wonderful, so that was very good news. He took x-rays and there was a little problem with my right jaw. I told him the reason I came in, was to see if he could discover something that could be causing my earache. I told him I’ve had it for five months, and I had a brain MRI and the ENT guy was stumped.  My job isn’t closing evenly, so my old TMJ issues might be the cause. He’s going to try a night guard for me and see if that helps. I told him I do not have dental insurance any longer and he said not to worry about it. It’s diagnostic and it would be free of charge. When he walked in the room and saw me in the dental chair, he got tears in his eyes and gave me a big hug. He said “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you again”!  I said “I know! And I’m not dead!” He threw back his head and laughed and laughed.  Anyway, he told me to come in tomorrow at 3 PM to get fitted.

My next stop was the home health building. I was there for an hour while they explained all about how to use my new CPAP machine. I don’t have a face mask with it. I have just a small thing that goes over my nose. I’ve already set it up next to the bed and I’m going to give it a good try.

The women’s health boutique called on my cell phone and said my delivery was in, so I drove up there and picked my supplies up.

The ophthalmologists office was not very fun today. I was there a long time and they ran a whole mess of tests on me. They did not dilate my eyes, and for that, I was very grateful. They had me look through things and answer questions over and over and over. He examined me and then sent me to another room for more tests. He came back in to see me a second time and said my left eye is healing pretty well. I already knew that. It’s my right eye that is giving me grief. I told him the headlights at night were unbearable. He said, does it look like someone is shining a flashlight in your eyes? I said yes.  He said I had a lot of floaters that should be gone by now and the fluid behind my lens that fills my eyeball was full of cloudy stuff.  It’s called vitreous fluid and I need to go see a specialist. There are two in Tyler and I need to have an eye operation called vitrectomy. He said they will take out all of the fluid and replace it with different fluid, or bubbles, actually. He said he would call and set it up for me. I read about it and it doesn’t sound like very much fun, either. But, it’s either that, or live like this. I refuse to live like this. This isn’t fair.

He said, after that operation, if I still could not see well, he would perform Lasik on my right eye. He said my insurance would cover the vitrectomy operation and he would do the Lasik for free.  Gee, thanks. So, I will not be able to drive at night until I have the next surgery done.

I read something a few days ago. It said to be thankful for the bad things in your life because they open your eyes so that you can see the good things that you were not paying attention to before.

It’s true. I sit with my eyes closed a lot these days. They get tired a lot and the sunlight hurts. When my eyes are closed. I hear things differently. I enjoy listening very much. 

Never lose hope. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring.