We were sitting at the Airport in Kansas City last Sunday, after Thanksgiving with our family there (and working on our second house!) I decided I needed something to read before we got on the plane, so I headed to the newsstand in the waiting area.
The clerk reached up her hand (she was pretty small) and said:
"Hi, my name is Shorty!"
I replied:
"Hi, my name is One-eyed Black!"
We both had a chuckle, and she asked if my eye (not visible because of the patch I have over my glasses on that side) was going to be OK. I had to tell her that cancer make it go bye-bye, and she wished me well.
So, now I have a new nickname. Great! Always nice to have a few available when needed!
Living with One-Eye
I am getting used to this, but there are a few things that do not seem to be changing. The weirdest of them is that strange maze-like pattern I see when it is dark, or when I close my eye. (Heck, it even feels weird to say eye where the normal word would have been eyes!)
Visual Maze
The maze does not seem as obvious, except when I first turn off the lights in a room at night. I cannot move for a few seconds, until I find some source of light, then I get my bearings and can move around. But very slowly. I am doing things I am sure blind folks have to do. I use my hands and arms as a barrier to make sure I do not walk into a column, or the wall. It is no fun, but I am learning how to get around in the dark. This is only a problem when it is very dark. I do not have any problems driving with the headlights on.
The doctors are still thinking that my brain is trying to make sense of the signals coming from my old eye nerves, which are still there, just not attached to anything. I have to draw a picture of what I see, maybe I can do that over the break between semesters.
Note
A few days after I posted this, one of my web news feeds published images of the nerve endings they found in mice under a microscope (how they did this is something I do not really want to know!) They colored the images to show nerve bundles and the unexpected fibres in each of those bundles. What I see is a black background with green lines, and the clumps and lines are more rectangular than this, but the image is close enough to give you the basic idea of what I see when it is totally dark!
Depth Perception
Losing an eye zaps your depth perception. No doubt about that! And that is probably the biggest thing I miss. Surprisingly it is only an issue when you try to look at things closer than about 20 feet away. Driving normally is no problem.
But, driving in close quarters to things is an issue. I get very nervous about exactly where the edges of my truck are when I pull into a parking space, for example. Going to an ATM machine is a pain. They put those big poles in the ground to keep you from bashing the machines, and where I go there are poles on the other side as well. The result is that I go VERY slowly into the lane so I do not hit either pole. I always clear them just fine, but it never looks like that is going to happen.
Then there is the parking garage at school! I have to swing around corners with cars on both sides, then do an "S" turn through several steel columns to get to the exit door. I worry about scraping the sides of my truck off during that, but I am doing fine for now. Phew!
Half World
The last thing I am still dealing with is the feeling that the world is a smaller place. Even though they say I have only lost 20% of my field of vision, that 20% is important to the feel of the world. I still have a sense that there is something over on that left side I simply cannot see. Originally it felt like I was driving or walking in the mountains, and there was a huge mountain on my left side, blocking my view. Now, it just feels like a dark void over there. Oddly, I occasionally feel like I can see over there, but when I try to look in that direction, I see the blackness of nothing instead.
Overall, all of these feelings, and issues will fade with time, but for now, they are just part of my daily life.
Dinner
Last night, we had our friends, Howard and Cheryl, from up in north Austin down for dinner. Howard is going through almost exactly the same things I am, with the same doctors! We had a nice dinner (thanks to my Cheryl, and Howard's Cheryl as well) and Howard and I compared notes and told more Dr. Scholl stories.
I told Dr. Scholl that we did this, and he said the next time we had one of these sessions to give him a call, and his daughter could join in on the fun. He is a cool guy, and a highly respected doctor in this town. Both Howard and I owe him a lot, for the work he has done to keep us alive. And, I have to thank my new set of doctors at M. D. Anderson for doing the same.
Ticket Punching Time
This is the last week of classes at school, so I really should be grading now, not writing this blog. Grades are due in by Dec 16, and Cheryl and I are headed off to Houston on Dec 17. Bright and early on Dec 18, I start the process of getting yet another CAT scan to make sure the cancer is still gone. We are all banking on that being true, but we will know for sure later that day when we see Dr Lai, my head doctor at M. D. Anderson, and Dr. Keis, my Oncologist there. If all goes as we pray it will, I will have another three months of not thinking about cancer. Yeah, just in time for the holidays!
But this week it is another story. I always start to get, well, concerned about the test and the answer that comes. I dread sitting in the doctor's office waiting for the door-knob to move indicating that the answer is seconds away. That wait is just awful! But then you have the answer, good or bad, and the anxiety goes away, and you live with the results.
No matter what, I am ready for it, and will accept the answer. We are all praying for a good result, since there is nothing going on, as far as I can tell, that might indicate otherwise. But we still need all of your prayers as well, so keep them coming. All of us know that helps.
Christmas
In the meantime, I hope getting ready for Christmas is going well for all of you. Cheryl and I will be heading up to Kansas City again for Christmas, then back home for New Years.
Wishing you all the best for the holidays!!
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