ROLLING ON WHILE CHECKING MY EYES

So I have been nervous, but for peace of mind I have been wanting to get my eyes checked. It has been well over a year since I have last seen my eye Dr. I have really felt that within this past year things have gotten worse. I have more than several issues going on with my eyes, I am wanting for you to know as my readers so that you know why I do not post as often as I could. My eyes make it easy to procrastinate.

3 years ago I was told by the eye doctor that I had optic atrophy. Which deals with the nerves in the brain sending signals to the other parts of the body. My nerves are jacked up all over my body so this was no surprise to me however, I had never heard of it before.It was at a 40% level and a normal level for people’s optic nerve is 90%. Due to my FA (my disability) having the nerve endings deteriorate which causes them not to regenerate I was thinking “here we go again.” He said there is nothing that can be done, but they will keep an eye on it for progression. I was expecting for him to tell me it had gotten worse but it has stayed the same!!

One of the tests showed that I have no preferale vision, which explains why my dad can be standing right beside me talking to me and I do not see him.

Thank goodness for myself or Christina that I did not have to do the test where they shoot a puff of air into your eye this time. I hate that test. I would have headbutted Christina and knocked the wind out of her as she would just be trying to keep my chin on the thing!

Getting over 40 is no Bueno as several years ago I had to start wearing glasses again (I had eye LASIK surgery at 30, and was happy to be 4-eye freed for over 12 years). I have progressive lenses now. I will admit that I do not wear the progressive lenses often at all. For seeing things at a distance I do fine. It is seeing the things close up that is the issue more. He told me that my close-up vision has gotten worse since the last time. I do not wear them at my computer, because I also wear my headset for my Dragon (voice dictation software). With the glasses on it hurts behind my ears. I would not be able to do anything without my Dragon. So I guess I’m just going to have to figure out some way to deal with a microphone without using a headset. I do have speakers on my computer. So we both decided that I will take the Rx down to Walmart for reading glasses only. I hate the thought of it as I am so hard on glasses due to my disability. I break them, rollover them, bend them, and scratch them!

I have been getting frustrated to no end over the fact that I have been having trouble focusing, having blurry vision, and seeing spots! All 3 of these things are side effects due to a high dose of my heart med’s, my diabetes, and my FA. My cardiologist has mentioned a couple of times that maybe we could try a different medication. But since this medication is working and has been for 4 years at the high dose at keeping my heart in regular rythym I do not want to jinx it. So I will deal with it. Diabetes and the eyes do not see eye to eye!

I am so discouraged about it all and thank you for listening to me rant! I feel like such a whine bag. But sharing about all of this with you has made me see that things are not as horrible as they could be. It could always be worse! I am blessed just to be able to see as I have friends who are blind! Again, thank you for reading!

On another brighter note, I would be completely self pay for my eye appt. which was not cheap if it wasn’t for the help of my mother’s Medicare! Thanks mom!! Even though you are not here you always find a way to take care of me!

Rolling on, Stephanie