Passenger Log Stardate 5 October 2021
MISSION: Wandering Minds Crazy Eyes
It has been some weeks since The Passenger has written in the logbook of the Voyage of Starship Genesis 2:7. It has been a time of getting used to wearing oxygen at night and hopefully… maybe… sleeping a little better because of it. It has been a time of still struggling with some of the short term effects of this lung disease. Hopefully, as I link myself more with the folks at the IPF foundation and with some of the groups that are working to understand better this disease that it will provide some help not just for my own understanding but for those in the future who haven’t yet contracted the disease. Maybe in their day there will be a cure.
Sometime back I started with additional eye changes. You may remember, at least I think I’ve mentioned, that I’ve had cataract surgery and have lenses in my eyes that are designed to make it so I don’t need glasses. Well, I got to the point where my vision in my right eye was still not what it needed to be. A great friend of ours and a physician in whom I trust very much, an M.D. who takes care of eyes, (I’ll just call him Dr. D here), found that the retina on my right eye is not as it should be. For lack of a better term, I’ll say it’s got some scar tissue on it or flattening on it that it’s not supposed to have. I had damage to that eye 40+ years ago. I got a small shard of steel in the eye and I don’t know if that has any effect on why the retina is as it is now. But some changes continued and I got to where I was seeing double… which made it fun when I was trying to drive.
Dr. D prescribed glasses to try to negate what was happening because of this flattening of the retina or the scar tissue whatever you want to call it. Still, recently, I returned to the eye doctor and had some additional tests because the double vision had returned intermittently and it has brought on a new challenge perhaps… or at least a new question that we need to answer.
Now we are setting up some additional test to include an MRI of the brain. That should not take long if they can find it. But the doctors might have to use a GPS to find my brain… sometimes it wanders!
There is a concern with Dr. D as to whether or not the visual changes are not from the retina but instead from me having had a TIA. For those of you who don’t read medical books for a living or have not taken an EMT class any time in the last 20 years, a TIA stands for a trans-ischemic attack. For those of us who don’t speak doctor, it’s a mini stroke. One of the ways a mini stroke can present itself is through ocular changes and so Dr. D wants to rule that out.
Whether or not I have had one and how that will effect how he goes forward and treating the vision issues, I don’t know. It really isn’t going to change much in the rest of my life at this point. The voyage continues and The Passenger continues to trust the Captain of our Starship. When, I as I write this, I am enjoying an October afternoon. It is about 75° and sunny and I am by our pond and fishing. Not a bad way to spend the day! (With double vision I can catch twice as many fish! But putting two worms onto two hooks while both are moving is a bit tricky!)
Thank you all for your prayers! Please continue to pray for me and especially pray for my family. They are the ones who have to watch the Voyage and ride along. It wasn’t their choice… but it is their decision to stay on as Crew and they have to watch it’s effects on me. I believe, quite sincerely, it’s harder for them than it is for me. Please remember them in your prayers.
Thank you and God bless!
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