Blind Applesauce.

Thought it was about time to refocus and start something new. So the old blog is gone and this one is just beginning. Eventually I will privatize this one, so let me know your email and schtuff so I can add you to my list. Until then I am going to try and refrain from using anything too personal on here for security and safety reasons!

So what's new?

Well...

I'm goin' blind.

That's right friends. In a year of, what else could possibly go wrong? WHAM! You may add this to my list.

How do I feel about this?

I feel sort of comical about the whole thing. I went in just to get my prescription updated in my glasses and to get a pair of plastic frames that aren't going to bust as easily under the gentle (pshhh) play of a two year old. And maybe to further connect with my inner Tina Fey. So I go in, pass some of the initial tests.... then came the peripheral light test. FAIL. Fail, fail, fail, fail. I thought it hadn't started yet. Odd. Then came the usual puff of air (more like blast of air) test in both eyes, no glaucoma for me! YaY!  Then they took some crazy pictures of my eyeballs. Then I got to read that chart with the letters (which every year gets a little more scary and comical for the nurse who gets to hear me guess letters randomly and ask, is that an ampersand? Is that W moving or is it just me?).

Then I move in to the doctor's exam, He does that flippy little eye contraption ... 1 or 2? Better 1 or 2? 2. Better 1 or 2? 1. etc. And find out my eyesight has worsened significantly in both eyes. Odd. More than just a year's worth of age. Odd, says the doctor. He shows me the line of letters with my current prescription then flips to my new. WHOA. Hey there's the letters! I laugh, not joking. Doctor looks concerned.

Let's dilate your eyes. Ok. 4 stinging drops and 15 minutes later He is holding the light with that little lens thing. And going WEIRD!!!! Not at all what you want to hear. It occurs to me that at my last visit the doctor did mention there was something off in my eyes in the back and to have it followed up on, then I got pregnant and never did.

Well... here it comes...

You have old eyes.

Excuse me?

Old eyes. These are the typical eyes of a 90 year old.

30 minutes of testing later... he thinks I may have macular dystrophy, which causes blindness. He's concerned enough to fax a specialist on a Saturday which makes me gulp a little. Today I went for that follow up, and indeed I am going blind. Wow. A week ago I was just bouncing the idea of going to the doctor for some more sturdy frames and now I find out my vision is going altogether. The specialist poked, prodded, and put 3 sets of drops in each eye (which stung like a mofo!) and shone every imaginable light contraption in there and found significant loss of vision and degeneration on my macula and fovea (your central vision, and the fovea makes things sharp) in both eyes, plus peripheral blindness in the right already and some degeneration of that in the left. Plus I have a groovy degeneration beginning on the part of the eye that recognizes color.

It's really weird to be 26 years old and have a doctor tell you, don't freak out but it's definitely blindness. The extent of which he can't really tell without better equipment and more stinking tests. Fun, fun, fun. So next month I go back for 3 more rounds of tests and to UPH for electrode tests. Yep, they hook electrodes up to my eyes and with the sum of all these things may be able to tell me how fast and how much of my vision I will lose.

Whataweek!

I want answers and at the same time I almost don't!

But no matter what, I know God is with me. Right here. Even when I gotta get electrodes in my eyes.