During the last month I had several eye-related situations.
A sharp pain in the upper part of my right eye turned out to be a nodule on the cornea. Under local anesthesia, the doctor scraped — that’s right: scraped — the nodule from the cornea which left me in excruciating discomfort for several days — even with pain-killers and sleeping medications. I’ve had two follow-up visits and will now need a correction in the right lens of my glasses to offset the additional light coming through the cornea to the pupil as a result of the scraping. Then, an examination of my left eye revealed cysts growing on that cornea.
I’m not about to complain when so many of my friends have lost portions of their sight to macular degeneration robbing them of the ability to read, drive and, in some cases, go out alone.
Now keeping track of my eyeglasses has added a new dimension to the situation. Usually I follow a pretty standard routine. For example, when I get up from the computer I put the glasses on the top shelf of the bookcase. By the same token, when I go out I put them on the dining room table; that is unless I forget and wear them outside then I put them on the bench on the porch. The trouble now is that I’ve started to forget these fail-safe places and in that event all bets are off and the hunt begins.
I’ve discovered the glasses on top of the toilet tank, next to the toaster in the kitchen, on the window sill among the African violets, on the bedside table behind the Kleenex and on and on. What’s this all about anyway?
I tried all sorts of eyeglass holders to wear around my neck or clip to my clothes but they were too involved and lately I’ve become very clumsy. I used to laugh when my mother told me she’d lost her finger prints…”Yes”, she would say. “The ends of my fingers are all smooth and I can’t use them for anything small, like earrings.” I now know what she meant: eyeglass holders fall into the “need fingerprints” category.
Fortunately I still haven’t made any life-threatening mistakes such as befell the woman in the following story which was e-mailed to me by a friend. Read on…
‘Yesterday my daughter asked why I didn’t do something useful with my time. She suggested I go down to the senior center and hang out with the guys. I did this and when I got home last night I told her I had joined a parachute club.
She said, “Are you nuts? You’re almost 82 years old and you’re going to start jumping out of airplanes?”
I proudly showed her my new membership card.
She said to me, “You idiot. Where were your glasses? This is a membership to a Prostitute Club, Not a Parachute Club!”
I’m in trouble again and don’t know what to do! I signed up for five jumps a week!’
Life as a senior citizen is not getting any easier!
Happy holidays to all!
