Eye Doctor

 I saw an eye Doctor, yesterday.  My left eye is looking worse and worse.  It is constantly bloodshot, my pupil doesn't react as quickly as the right eye, and my vision is blurry.  After close examination, the doctor found that I have a fairly deep cut through the center of my cornea, which is causing the blurred vision.

I suppose it never dawned on me that the entire left side of my face, which includes my left eyeball, is completely numb.  I could have damaged my eye at any point in time, and never felt it, although we both agree that it probably happened in my sleep.  

She grabbed a Q-tip and gently touched it to my right cornea.  My eyelids closed within a millisecond of the swab touching my eye.  That is our natural response to eye pain.  Then she touched it to my left eye.  No reaction at all from my eyelids.  All this means is that my left eye has lost it's level of protection, and is vulnerable to harm at any point in time.  She feels strongly that she can repair my eye and have it seeing clearly with medicine, but, getting it to track along with my right eye is a neuro problem.  She is the newest member of my team.  She sent her findings to all of the other doctors, and will work closely with them to find the answers.

One of the "if all else fails" suggestions that she threw out is to surgically center my left eye.  This way, they could train my right eye to track with the left so that I can have binocular vision when looking forward.  Interesting idea...

All things considered, with the exception of my left eye, I could easily live with all of the other neurological deficits that are a part of this cancer journey.  For the most part, my left face is just numb - from the top of my scalp, forehead, entire eye area, cheek, nose, jaw, upper and lower left teeth, gums, half my tongue, and half the room of my mouth - just completely numb.  I've bumped my head against things so many times.  If it wasn't for the abrupt stop of my head, I'd have never known it.

I get these crazy, shocking nerve pains every now and then, but only a few times a day.  I still get the "worm under the skin" crawly feelings, but not constantly, like early on in my initial symptoms.  I've gotten used to them and don't react anymore. 

But now, I believe that the mosquitos have figured out that the left side of my head is fair game.  I can't feel them land on me, much less bite me.  To make matters worse, I've lost about 90% of my hearing in my left ear, so I can't hear them buzzing around either.    

I have to make sure that I put mosquito repellant on.  The upside is that the bites don't itch!  I look in the mirror and see a bunch of red spots, and think, "Dang it, they got me again."  Fortunately, we always have a breeze blowing on our property, which minimizes the mosquitos ability to find their targets.

I began to take an inventory of material that I have onsite for the house renovation project.  I never knew that I had so much.  Typical of me, I would get excited about a phase of the project, buy the material and bring it home, then get distracted by another project, buy more material, and the cycle begins again.

I've been tackling some projects around the house.  All Kathie has wanted since we moved up here is a screened porch overlooking the lake.  As it turns out, I had all the material to build the deck, so I began that phase a few days ago.  What would typically be a three day project has taken me ten days so far.  I just can't seem to keep a normal pace anymore.  I like to blame it on the cancer, but I'm afraid it might be age.

I feel like I am in a holding pattern.  I need to start working again, but am hesitant to do so, not knowing if the cancer is gone.  What if I start working then find out that I need to go through more treatment?  

Next Tuesday the 22nd, I head back down to Chicago for my follow up exam and MRI.  We should know more after that point.