A Year Out

What a year!
In one week, in the month of March, one year ago my world tilted a bit.

Megan was visiting with her two children, and I was worried that she was ill. No, she was just very newly pregnant, and now we have a second granddaughter, the lovely Trixie added to the world.

Susan was compelled to quit her job at the local museum because a triumvirate of the museum head and two trustees were interfering with her projects and unfairly impugning her abilities. She was offered a new job the following week, and another when that one ended. Unfortunately, museum work tends to be part time and short term, linked to specific projects and grants, so she is still chasing the elusive permanent job. Whilst she was dealing with unfair employers last year, she was also reconciling with a boyfriend after a short break-up.  Last month they became engaged, and now we are planning a wedding for spring 2012.

Bob was made redundant to cap off that week a year ago. Miraculously he was offered another job despite his advanced age. During the interregnum of unemployment from June to October, we discovered the joy of free time, but were reminded of the joylessness of no steady income.

Going forward to another week last year, this time in October, when Bob was preparing to begin his new job, and I was preparing to travel to Massachusetts for six weeks to help Megan with Bibs and Bobs and the baby about to arrive, I went to the local Vision Express for some much needed new glasses. The eye exam indicated a problem in my right eye, was followed by a visit to my primary care doctor, and quickly followed by an examination at the ophthalmology clinic at the local hospital. I had a hole in the macula of my right eye. There is surgery to repair a hole, but no flying allowed for 6 to 8 weeks after the operation, which would have left Megan high and dry with almost no notice. So we decided to schedule the surgery for my return in December.

That's when the problem with the National Health Service began. We have never had any problems before, but scheduling surgeries seems to be a big problem. The December date was cancelled, which I was glad about because I didn't want to interfere with Christmas, in favour of an early January date, which was cancelled on the day before the surgery for a mid-January date, which was also cancelled on the day before for a mid-March date. By this time I knew I had to turn to private care through Bob's private health care policy. So mid-March, four weeks ago, I had the surgery done at England's top eye hospital by the world's best retinal surgeon.

The outcome is still not determined because the recovery is long. A bubble of gas is left in the eye to hold everything in place so the retina can heal, and the bubble dissipates slowly over 6 weeks. At first it occludes all vision in that eye, then it starts to "fall" or rise, since the optic nerve reverses what we see, but it bounces around like a balloon, and light shimmers off of it, so really it is just terribly annoying. My working eye lets me do things, but my binocular vision is terrible, as is my depth perception. I can't sew, but knitting is okay as long as it's not too complicated, hence all the knitting I have been doing. Reading small print on a page is uncomfortable very quickly, but reading computer screens with large backlit type is good, hence all the time I have been spending on-line.

A year of waiting for things to fall into place, and for the most part everything has fallen into a good place for everyone, so I can only feel happy for that, but somehow I feel a bit exhausted from never quite knowing what to expect next. I don't often remember dreams, but I had a dream last night where I got out of bed and left the flat, left the building, and to take a walk around the local streets, when I realised I had not brought my pocketbook, so I had no keys, no way to get back home, and I kept telling myself what a stupid thing I had done. Somehow, I did get back into bed (it's a dream), and I told myself that I would not have this problem again if I simply decided to stay in bed forever. When I woke up this morning, I lay there thinking I shouldn't get up because for some reason I was supposed to stay in bed forever. I was tempted to try it, but then I didn't feel quite exhausted enough for that.