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We got even more rain, and now, the living is easy. No more worries about a drought for a while, but the temperatures are setting records for being over 100° (38° Celsius) for the longest number of days in a row. Ever. The humidity is equally horrid. I guess we can't have it all our way. The extremely high temperatures seem much worse if the ground is dry and all the vegetation is brown.
My right eye that got the surgery is a little sore. Only when I rub it to get the cracklings out. My sight in that eye is still astonishing. It seems like every day now I think about how being able to see well again might be an advantage. This morning I thought about being able to aim a gun with some expectation of accuracy again.
Back in my youth when I was in the Navy I was on the rifle and pistol team and was considered an expert shooter. The team I shot with was just the local one on the ship I was stationed, not the high falluting all-Navy competition team. I enjoyed it, and it got me off the ship during working hours. Later in life, as I aged and my vision got more compromised, my aim was not very accurate anymore. Now, who knows?
My trip to Durham yesterday to reschedule my appointment at the arthritis clinic was a delightful break from my mundane daily ex-is-tense. I didn't take a different route than the one I normally use. I have to take a two-lane road for about 15 miles (24.1 Km), and then it's a super highway for the rest of the way. North Carolina has some of the best roads in the country. They oughta have. They charge the most gasoline tax.
It worries me that I'm anticipating getting the cataract procedure done on my left eye. Anything could happen between now and August 5th to delay or prevent it from happening. The government could literally fail and the VA Hospitals could close for lack of funding. The legislators are more interested in becoming richer and more powerful personally than in looking out for the needs of the people. You know, the same way it's always been.
It's not possible for me to accurately guess how having clear vision in both eyes will affect my life. I couldn't anticipate it before the procedure on my right eye was done. Everyone I knew who has been through this before tries to tell me how wonderful it was for them, but that doesn't translate into personal knowledge until the deed is done, and I can look through my own eyes to "see" what's wot. It's important for me to assume the attitude: What if it fails?
Every surgeon who has had their way with me seems obligated to remind me that surgery can be unpredictable. In this case, I could end up blind in my left eye, and despite the remote possibility, all surgical procedures can end with death. It happens. I could write that I hope that doesn't happen to me, but why bother?
What better way of dying than to go under the knife hoping to emerge with a better ability to see stuff than ever before in my life, and never waking up? Easy peasy. No suffering. No anticipation of some dreadful afterlife, merely a quick unconscious death in the fast lane. I just love it.
One of the reasons I find it difficult to plan ahead in regard to the possibility of good visual acuity is that I've never actually been completely blind. The prescription glasses I've worn for the last thirty years have allowed me to see fairly well. Since I've always been far-sighted, I've only had to wear eyeglasses to read and do close-up work.
In the last decade, however, the optometrists have had a more difficult time fitting me with a prescription to overcome my growing cataracts. In the last year or so they have pretty much told me straight forwardly that increasing the power of the lens couldn't compensate for the cloudiness and the brown shade of my natal lens.
I've been told about my need for the cataract procedure for over five years by at least five optometrists, but the surgeons kept saying the cataracts hadn't "bloomed" enough to warrant surgery, and besides, neither medicare or private insurance would pay for it until they had bloomed enough. Now, the waiting is almost over. One eye is done, and the other one will be fixed in twelve days.
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