Tender Mercies

This post is for my benefit to remember how things came about ...

The before picture Mar 30 2011 9:47 am

Events for the last 6 years have led up to this moment in time to help me get through something that many others go through and it is no big deal but it is to me and it amazes me that Heavenly Father cares about me and my day to day things. It also humbles me into realizing that I owe him more each day and it worries me a bit about what He wants of me. Will I be ready to serve as asked when the time comes?

1:23 pm

4:17 pm That is open by the way... However it got better quickly.

It started clear back in 2004 with our first trip to Kauai ... for our 25th wedding anniversary we finally took a honeymoon trip. One of the chosen activities was a snorkeling/kayak trip. (a couple of things went wrong .. one was when I put my face in the water I panicked it takes a bit to learn to breathe through the snorkel and I had had an experience of almost drowning,on a date back in college,when I went snorkeling and the mask didn't fit so water leaked in and I couldn't put my feet down because of the water plants we were supposed to be looking at so when I turned onto my back the water ran in my nose and down my throat: not a good way to clear the mask TMI (I was too inexperienced with too little instruction) the other thing is you can't wear glasses with a mask so it was scary to be in the ocean and not see anything more than two feet away-when I calmed down and tried to find Gerald I found a fish, which was fantastic until a little kid thought it was funny swimming down and scaring the fish away just from me grrr) I still realized that if I could see I would very much enjoy swimming in "an aquarium" .... so I went home and to the eye doctor to talk about contacts for the first time ever (I would never have done it if it weren't for snorkeling). I was 40 before I tried pierced ears and now almost 50 before trying contacts .. I guess I just have to be very motivated to change. Gerald's company sent us to Aruba that December so I had contacts and a PASSPORT for the first time....we again went on a see the island and snorkel trip and I truly loved it, the contacts worked great. We came home and bought a couple of sets of snorkeling gear, just in case we ever get a chance to go again.

The reason this was important is I found my eyes don't like contacts in Tucson tooo dry so I only wear them on trips to humid climates like Hawaii or Aruba (in Aruba my glasses would fog over going in or out of places so contacts were fabulous). I had always assumed that correcting the eyes for distance would be the way to go and then just use reading glasses for close work. It works really well for Gerald and many other people however the tender mercy is that after trying it I found that I hated it. I guess I thought eyes would still work somewhat like our God given eyes do, but they don't or at least if you are 50 years old and need reading glasses anyway they don't do anything more than what they are set for. So, when I sat down to eat I couldn't even see the food clear enough to know what it was. So for the last 6 years I have tried different things ... which is a very tender mercy (the first time I heard of someone getting one eye set for close and one eye set for distance I thought they was insane) Over time I learned that that is exactly what would work best for me .... I am so grateful for the length of time involved trying contacts because they can be changed where as eye surgery can't.

The next tender mercy was the way I found a doctor. I had gone to an optometrist in Costco as our family had for quite some time being cheaper than other private doctors. One time I got a script but didn't fill it for a couple of months when I took it in a filled it. It didn't work I couldn't see it felt like my eyes fought each other and wouldn't adjust like normal when you get new glasses, it takes a little while well normally for a new script but a week went by and it didn't improve .... I took them back to him and asked what was wrong (did he make a mistake or did the company filling the script do it wrong). It wasn't wrong it was just that my eyes were changing that quickly. He took forever working with me in another exam to convince me that it was as good as we could get it .... and then wrote it so that Costco would correct the glasses I had just gotten instead of charging me again, even though it was my eyes fault not the company's. He had told me several years before that I had cataracts so lasik surgery would not be available to me and that they were fast growing when they start and that the cataracts weren't up on the surface but on the back of the lens. After a few months I looked for an opthomologist to start the process of future cataract surgery .... I found a guy that didn't listen to a word I said ... only gave me a script and said insurance would not pay for surgery because they are correctable use this script and come back in 8 months and he'd look again. I wasn't impressed--not just because I didn't get my way but he insinuated that a optometrist doesn't know enough as he and wouldn't be able to prescribe a good script .... I took offense and went looking elsewhere. I had told him I didn't want to get a new script I just wanted a medical doctors view of the cataracts so I knew what to expect ... in other words I didn't want to buy new glasses, that wouldn't clear things up anyway, every couple of months. (all these commercials that say get glasses for under a hundred and buy one get one free doesn't work if you have anything more than the slightest correction and certainly not astigmatism correction and bifocals). I was lucky to find anything around $400 even with cheap frames) I knew for sure I would not let him do any surgery on my eye ... So I went looking for a doctor again. Gerald's counselor had a torn retina and awful things happen to his eye his doctor worked and worked on getting it corrected but because of the injury he got cataracts in that eye his doctor wanted the very best to fix his cataracts so that he would still be a poster child for all that they had done to help him. I contacted his cataract doctor. .. After working with doctors I find it is good to go to doctors that other doctors trust. I made contact and got an appointment.

Another tender mercy came from the difficult time I had in getting to this point...because it had made me learn or do some searching on line. The reason this was important is over the last eight months my eyes had gotten much worse so this doctor moved very fast in getting me set up for surgery etc. If I hadn't had the hard time and had the contact experience I wouldn't have known enough and would have been panicked by the speed of everything and would not have made very good choices or known what to ask or what the doctor was even talking about making decisions that would be permanent. I was impressed with how confident this doctor was and how safe I felt in having him work on my eyes versus the other guy. It isn't coming any too soon either .. I would have had to quit work and should not have been driving.

Even though I am sad that I had this problem so young I am also very glad I had this problem so young...I get to enjoy my eyes seeing without glasses and was young enough to understand what was going on. A man across the way having his done was 40 years older than I was...94. It was nerve racking enough for me I can't imagine what it is like when you can't take care of yourself even. Actually the 94 year old was doing fine but there were others that weren't keeping things very straight.

Now the experience... it will certainly be worth it... and the actual surgery was a breeze. I only saw light except for when the lens was taken out I think I saw it go across my vision as it was sucked out only because the light became totally blurry after this little line slid across my vision. Shortly thereafter the light became distinct again. So even though I was awake the only thing I could feel was fluid temperature when it was put on my eye....the only thing I know is that they kept asking to have it squeegeed.... I bet it only took 14 minutes maybe less of actual surgery....slick slick.

Afterwards there hasn't been any pain either ... definitely irritation like a contact has gone back on the back of the eye ball - except when we first took the patch off. I was totally blown away that I couldn't see at all nor work my eye ... for about 10 minutes it was privately scary. I thought maybe the eye ball stuck to the lid or something horrible like that. However it didn't take long for that to change and I have no astigmatism in that eye !!!!! I still can't see clearly at a distance because this eye is purposely made myopic - it is amazingly clear for close so I can't wait until the right eye is fixed for distance. The right eye is more astigmatic and has more cataract than the left one had ... it also has floaters that won't be corrected with the surgery, but it will be amazing if all goes well and there is no reason to think it won't so in two weeks I will begin again. Yeah!!! What a positive experience it has been so far.