good god.
well, to begin with, last sunday, not the one we just had, but the sunday before that, kevin was playing an online game on my computer and it just died died died.
i assumed that his friend wayne woiuld be able to fix it, but wayne looked at it and no, it was MORTALLY WOUNDED.
so, right now i’m using kevin’s computer while he reads a magazine.
we have to ship my computer to the repair place in california, so it will probably be about a bazillion years before i have it back. meanwhile, my photos were on there, so no photos for a while, unless i’m not so lazy and put some of them on this computer. this is possible, at least in theory.
but so that was last sunday, the 6th of july.
but let’s go back one day, to saturday, july 5th. we were having a few people over for a potluck and a boat ride, at 4:00.
at 3:59, kevin told me that he had some floaters in his right eye on friday, and they were worse on saturday morning, and now his eye was all cloudy and he couldn’t see.
WHAT???
i should have called off the party and researched all of this online, because when you get all this stuff and you have type 1 diatetes,it’s VERY VERY SERIOUS.
but kevin said he’d be fine, and not to worry, and all was fine.
monday morning we went to the optometrist who said he’d had a hemorrage in his eye, and said he’d have to have a needle injected in his eyeball to draw out the blood, and then new liquid would be put into his eye. which sounded pretty horrible. she said this would be done in a week, “so things could settle” in his eye. the office called the Illinois Retina Center, who had him come in RIGHT THEN AND THERE, not in a week.
The opthamologist at the retina center explained that kevin has diabetic retinopathy; oxygen hadn’t gotten to the vessels in his eye, so they withered, and the eye tried to make new blood vessels, but these new vessels that the eye grows are weak and crappy and they leak. which they did. the opthamologist said that they’d have to put really bright dye into his eyes to see how bad it is, and then he’d have laser surgery, to cauterize the weak vessels and stop them from growing. turns out that the whole needle in the eye thing was actually the last resort, and not something that kevin is going to need right now.
his eye would recover, but it could do so immediately, or in a few days or weeks or months.
so. this all seemed pretty serious, and she wanted to do the laser surgery then and there, but they were booked up and he’d have to wait and come back on thursday. in the meantime, he wasn’t supposed to bend over or pick up anything heavy, and he was only supposed to lie on his back, and not turn around from side to side.
she gave us a big booklet from the National Eye Institute, which i read later in the day.
and it was a pretty scary booklet, to me – there are 4 stages of diabetic retinopathy, and kevin is at the very last stage. and all over the booklet, it kept saying in bold font, that you should NOT let your eyes get to that last stage.
all the other stages were manageable, and the diabetic person is just supposed to get yearly eye exams. it also said it could take years for this last stage to occur.
kevin missed his exam last year – i don’t know how this happen; i guess he didn’t think about it during our awful summer.
but i didn’t understand how this could have happened so quickly, after just one missed appointment. the opthamologist said that even if you took really good care of yourself, things could happen.
diabetes, a very bad thing.
so monday night i worried about kevin as he slept, because he normally sleeps on his stomach, and he turned over a couple of times and i didn’t know whether or not to wake him up and yell LIE ON YOUR BACK! i called the opthamologist’s office on tuesday, and they said he could lie on his side, but he shouldn’t roll around a lot, and he needed to be elevated. we got through those three nights ok, and i tried not to lie there and watch him sleep, waiting for him to move.
he asked for an eye patch, because it gave him a headache to try to see with both eyes when one was all blurry, so i rushed to the store to get him one.
He got the fluorescent dye on thursday (he was delighted that it made his pee fluorescent, and wished it’d been in the winter so he could pee in the snow), and then they did the laser surgery. they had to dilate his eyes multiple times, and after they put the dye in, they had to take many photos of his eyes using a very, very bright flash. kevin said this was the worst part of it all. the laser surgery part only took about 15 minutes.
we’re optimistic people, and figured that he’d get better quickly. but this is the 5th day after the surgery, and his vision is still blurry. he goes back in a month to get more laser surgery, and the opthamologist says he’ll regain his sight, but like i said, days, weeks, or months. months would be a very long time.
i tried closing one eye to see how that feels, and it’s disconcerting. kevin says his balance is off, and he’s not comfortable driving, and he can’t finish the very last bit of working on the VW thing engine, and he can’t go for a bike ride, and he can’t do any shooting competitions.
so there we are, in the middle of our summer. it’s nowhere near as bad as last summer, but this kind of puts a crimp in things.
on a sunnier note, we went to see “dawn of the planet of the apes” yesterday (NOT in 3d!), and it was pretty good. for a planet of the apes movie. kevin liked it a lot. i looked up the movies online and there have been many planet of the apes movies, and i’m sure there will be many more. return of the planet of the apes, under the planet of the apes, beyond the planet of the apes, between the planet of the apes, toward the planet of the apes, near the planet of the apes, through the planet of the apes, over the planet of the apes, pretty close to the planet of the apes, half a block from the planet of the apes…OK, i might have made up a few of those titles, but basically, all you need to make another planet of the apes movie is some random preposition.
but in this latest incantation, these apes are technologically advanced, created digitally, also using real people for the facial features for the apes, blah blah blah, so they look really really real.
the guy who played the leader ape, caesar, was also gollum in all the lord of the rings movies. so that guy is doing very well for himself, in his speciality of non-human roles.
and that is all for this perfectly cool tuesday morning.
ok, then,
mrs. h.