I got up before 5:30 this morning and went for my walk. I did the mile in under 20 minutes, but a bit slower than yesterday. The stars were beautiful. And when I got back home, I heard a pack of coyotes yipping and howling in the distance.
I prepared a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my lunch before I ate breakfast, ,as well as getting my Move U exercises done before showering. I wanted everything to be ready so I could leave the house at 11 am when I got off work and execute my plan for the day.
I ended up leaving at 11:05, and only forgot one thing that I would need to spend a night in Boise (phone charger). I walked from my friend’s house about two miles to the retinologist. The Boise office is in a building at St. Al’s, which is where Ambrose died, so it’s hard for me to go there. And while I was walking in, I saw, heard, and felt a helicopter coming in for a landing. It was a LifeFlight, just like the one that brought Ambrose in, and I was hard pressed not to start bawling.
I had originally had this appointment set for tomorrow morning, but they told me they needed me to change to today. Unfortunately, whoever rescheduled me didn’t put me in a “laser” timeslot, just a regular check up timeslot, so ordinarily that would mean that they wouldn’t do the laser today. However, this doctor knew that I had issues coming to their Boise office and said that I could come back and get the laser done at the end of the day instead of making a new appointment.
So I went outside for a while and had a snack under a tree while I waited to go back in to get my left eye lasered. As I sat, the helicopter took off.
My right eye is healing, but not fully healed, so while I was outside, I called the Family Eye Center in Ontario and rescheduled next week’s appointment for May. Here’s hoping that eye finishes healing by then. I’m so ready for new glasses.
When I went back in for the laser procedure, there was a bit of hurry up and wait. I was there at 3:20 and ended up leaving just before 5 pm (original appointment was 2 pm). I had more dilation put in the left eye, and I had to sign a consent form. That was actually a good part because before I signed I got a full explanation of what was going to happen and got to ask questions. They also put stickers on my forehead, to mark which eye was going to get lasered and where.
Then I got the super numbing drops, which stung quite a bit at first, and then less and less as the first dose took effect. After those had time to work, the doctor came in and injected my eye with lidocaine around the iris. This doctor knows what he’s doing when it comes to injecting the eye. He kept the needle just out of my field of vision for both injections.
After that had a chance to work, I finally got called in for the lasering. I was sat at one of those eye doctor contraptions where they have you put your chin in the rest and push your forehead against the band. Then the doctor put something that felt wet and squishy against my left eye, having me open it wide. I assume this was to keep that eye open because I would definitely have blinked with all the light hitting my eye without it. The laser itself looked green, and every pulse came with a beep like the x-ray at a dentist’s office. I left my right eye open for a bit, in solidarity I suppose with the left, but it got too hard to hold it open with all the flashing, so I let it shut and saw only green with blood vessel traceries as the doctor instructed me to look forward, down, and left, pulsing each position with the laser.
After it was over, he told me in 20 minutes my vision would return to what it had been when I arrived. This was good to hear, because in the immediate aftermath, I felt like I couldn’t see well out of either eye. Both were blurry, and the left also had some pinkish purple color washes going on. And the headache that I’d been told would happen was starting to happen. I set up my follow up appointment at the Nampa office in six weeks, and walked out still pretty blurry. Then I set a timer for 20 minutes and started the walk back to my friend’s place.
My vision did improve as I walked, and within the 20 minutes had returned to normal. At that point, I decided to drive home rather than spend the night in Boise. I’m just so much more comfortable in my own home. I did have a good chat with my friend before I left, and drank some water because I had sweated a lot on those two walks. And took an ibuprofen and acetaminophen to combat the headache.
The drive home was uneventful. A bit of traffic in Boise and Nampa, but not too bad. I stopped at Ridley’s in Weiser to get eye drops. I might not need them, but better to have them and not need them. The person who had me sign the consent advised that they would help with irritation. I am glad to be ready to calm my poor lasered eye.
Now that I’m home, I’ve got to shower and get to bed. I might wear sunglasses for work tomorrow. I was advised that I’d be a bit light sensitive for a few days.
When I was walking back to my friend’s house, I thought about wishing Ambrose hadn’t died and was here with me. And I felt like there was an answer. Like he said, “I am dead, and I am still here.” A paradox, but one that feels like something he would say to me.