Two New Specialists for the Eye

I had an appointment with Dr. Heigle, who is my cornea specialist.  I have an epithelial mass under the cornea of that eye I see him for.  That is not growing so he just looks at it once a year.  Kinda like the thyroid nodules were before they started changing.

He looked at my eye, and looked some more.  Then called in another cornea specialist Dr. Tran and he looked and looked some more.

They talked back and forth and decided on another stronger course of Valtrex the antiviral, increasing the steroid to 6 times a day, and discontinuing one of the other drops.

Dr. Pearce, the previous specialist, had decreased the steroid because of the increased pressure in my eye.  But that is back to normal for the last three months.

I have an appointment with Dr. Tran on Friday.  He will check on the changes and hopefully see an improvement!

FIVE months.  Yep, five months I've been dealing with this.

Wish me luck!  And if you need me, I will be putting drops in my eye all the time now!

April Fool's Day Success, Once Again!

I am sure every year that all my friends are sitting on pincushions waiting for me to strike.  They all know I do something every year to at least one of them.  And ALWAYS to Frank and Carrie.

And this year I got 3 people, really good!  LOL.  I am still chuckling about it.  I was  brilliant.

From Web MD

I told  you that we were seeing the eye doc for Frank.  He called me Thursday morning, panicked about a spot of vision loss he noticed for the first time.  I pulled some strings and got him an appointment for 3:30 that afternoon.

The doctor thoroughly checked him and he seemed OK, no macular degeneration, no retinal tear, no cornea damage, no injuries, nothing.  So they sent him for a scan today.

The results were interesting.

I called Carrie and told her what the doctor said.  I told her her dad needed emergency surgery and we would not be making the cruise.  I also asked her if she though she and Andrew could take out tickets.

She took the news with a shock.  I heard that in her voice.  She clarified the dates and gave it a good deep consideration.  She immediately started thinking about what she had going on that week and decided she could do it.   She thought she could but would need to talk to Andrew to see if he could get off.  And if he couldn't, what girlfriend could go. 

Then, it hit her.  She asked if he needed surgery, did she really want to be out of town.  (Good girl, I was wondering when the My-Daddy-Needs-Me might kick in.)

When she asked me that question, I asked her if she knew what day it was.

Boy, I can spin those Shaggy Dog Stories, I can.

I also got our cruising partners with a similar story.  They said they would miss us on the ship!  Can you imagine that.

What he really has is the eye jelly forming lumps and pulls away from the retina as it does in 85% of people over 45 (yikes).  But his is sitting right over the center of his retina and he can see it.  It should dissolve with no problem.  Problems do occur when the eye jelly pulls away from the retina but sticks to the retina and pulls it too.

Retinal tears are serious, so if you see a shadow, go get it checked out!

No April Fool's there!

Where Was The Camera?

My new eye is marvelous.  I spent the day yesterday running around in the glorious fall weather, exclaiming how incredible I could see every 10 or 15 minutes!  Really, it is amazing to literally "see" the difference from before and after.

I am glad you liked the Orange Cactus post!  He has been with us for a long time now, and he is always interesting!

Yesterday was the last physical therapy appointment.  Today I took my bag of goodies over at 11 am when they got off work.  I had a quilt for everyone!  They were floored!  It was fun seeing them go through the six quilts and bargaining with each other to get the one they wanted.

I think they were all happy with each one they ended up with!

Of course I forgot to take a single picture!!  Aughhh!

In other news, the Lorax Quilt is complete!  Here are the final pictures of that.  I did remember that before I send it off.

Tory chose the most perfect stripe for the binding.  I mentioned that stripes often look great as bindings, and she did it proud!

 Yeah!  One down.  One more to go!


I am still thinking about Seuss 2.  So that will stay with me in top stage for a bit.  I have an idea of what I need to do, I don't want to do it, but I know what it needs.  More later.

Having Your Stupid Moment in the Morning.......

...leaves the afternoon open for another one!

I had an appointment with my eye specialist this morning at 9:15.  I have a growth in my right eye he watches and measures yearly now.  It has not grown at all and we are comfortable with that.  It is different from scar tissue, which I will get to in a minute.  It is actually epithelium cells, but they have no changed in size or shape in the year and a half he has been following it.  So we are cool with that.

I also have a lazy eye, that nothing can be done with.  I originally had lasik in when they could no longer correct it with lenses.  It worked beautifully.  Then it got a cataract and a new fancy lens.

Now it is cloudy making it difficult to see anything now as it is getting worse.  I have scar tissue behind the new lens.  I say new, it has been 4 or 5 years now since the surgery.  And it necessitates a procedure called YAG.  I like the name, YAG.

They use a laser to burn the scar tissue.  And they go through the outside of the eye, and it doesn't get burned.......go figure.

So here's the stupid thing.

When my eyes were CLEAR, not dilated even, I wanted to take my machine to get cleaned and oiled by Alex who is near the eye doctor's office.  And I didn't want him to think I was a total slob so I opened up the bobbin area of the machine to clean it out before putting it in the car.  The walking foot was on, so......here is the stupid thing.......while the bobbin case was open, I took the walking foot off. 

I drop the stupid little screw that holds the stupid foot on the stupid shaft.......yes.........down into the stupid bobbin area.  Whereupon it immediately finds one of those stupid little holes and fits its stupid self right down into the dark, scary, evil depths of the stupid machine.  (Everywhere you see the word stupid please insert the four letter word of your choice, I did.)

He said, in his thick Russian accent, not problem, lady.  I find it when I open machine.

the afternoon is still ahead of me........let's see what other stupid things I can do!

Off the Wall Friday - rocks and polyester

Tile Guy auditioning for
my next nude

This is my Off The Wall Friday post.  For more exciting projects from a lot of creative people, hop on over to Nina-Marie's Creations page.

I had a problem this week, I jabbed my eye with a piece of wire and sliced a 1.5 cm cut in it.  Not to be outdone, the uninjured part of the same eye decided to react to the ointment they gave me and now it is all inflamed and really ticked off at me.  So sewing has been out of the question since I am afraid that my fingers will suffer at the sewing machine.  And I can't go back to the ER for a while, lest they begin to recognize me.

And we are having tile laid in the bedroom (this guy is auditioning for my first male nude!) and all the furniture is in the den/living room and I can't find anything in the clothing I tossed on the guest bed from my overstuffed closet.  (The tile is ceramic but looks just like wood.  It will be gorgeous when finished.  And the dogs cannot scratch it up!)

The truthbomb spoke to me this morning:

                              You have everything you need. Right now.

I am pretty sure they don't mean fabric though.

I decided to sit on the patio and try a technique that didn't involve sharp thin instruments I couldn't see well.  I am tying rocks into a polyester scarf I found among my mother's things as I was clearing out the bottom of my closet.  I put it in the Purple Cow Recycle bin and then thought to

take it out and play.

I can't find the original post, but what I will attempt to do now that the rocks are all tied in the scarf, is to wet it and dry it with a hot blow dryer. 

The end effect is supposed to be a pebbling effect that will hold shape in the poly.  The next Fiber Challenge is Movement.  I think I can get a stream bed out of these pebbles.  I wish the scarf was blue, but I will work with what is at hand.

The Pond with the Loon and
the Turtle Rocks 

see the ripple in darker grass?

We have a rock walkway that was built to be a Rock Stream into the Japanese Garden Pond.  I will have to show you that one day.  It is really cool.  So these are my Japanese Rocks from the Rock Stream.  I sat on the Dam (bench) to put them together and listened to the birds call and the leaves rustle.  The the "water" pours over the "dam" into the larger "lake" and you can
see the ripples we made with the grass.  Cool.  I will have to get a picture of the ripples for
you.

Well, the idea didn't work.  I wet it and dried it with my hair dryer.  Nothing.  So I whipped up some 50/50 water/starch, nothing.  I went with 100% starch, nothing.  Did you know you really can't starch poly scarves?  LOL.  Really.  I gave up to watch Jodi's trial phase.

While I was watching the opening statements, I did some research on the web and it said to best do this effect with polyester scarf material you need a 200 degree conventional oven for 8 hours.  And you have to vent for the noxious fumes. 

Well, that ain't gonna happen.  I need to look further and find that post was where I saw this.  Darn.  I wish I had an implicit procedural memory!

Sometimes things just don't work.  More later, when the eye is better.

Plumber's Butt

The haiku is free floating silk

banana flower and tyvek

What a morning!  Busy, busy, busy!

Last night was my Fiber Group meeting. Here are some of the pieces from that meeting.  The quilt below is a project that Renee (she received a grant) is doing called Kids Quilt For Kids.  They use Marvel Fabric Markers and draw sea life, she pieces it and quilts it and it is donated to kids in need.  Don't you love it!  My piece was the fork, remember that?

The guys are grouting the tile this morning.  The dogs are at the vet once again.  My eye appointment was easy, getting there was in the morning traffic.  Madeline, my GP's nurse, called me back with an appointment time in 45 minutes so I was pretty rushed!  But I got there in time to fill out paperwork and sign my name a dozen or 50 times.  

Kids Quilt For Kids

Doc said it appeared I lifted the corner of my lasix flap.  And that was the irritation.  But the big problem was that I was reacting to the gentab ointment.  He said my eye was pretty well inflamed! But I knew that!  He advised me to stop doing surgery on myself.

New drops now feel better.  The reason I had the lasix in the first place was because I have a lazy eye and they could no longer correct for it in glasses.  I was falling off stairs I didn't know was there and stepping "down" lines I thought were stairs. My depth perception was gone.  The first lasix was for that eye, the second to hone the correction on that eye.  The third for the

other eye, and the 4th because I developed a bubble under the flap and they had to smooth it out.  Then the driver's license bureau found I had a cataract in one eye when I couldn't see a bank of numbers on their eye chart.  And the next 4 year renewal showed one in the other eye.  I was in my early 50s by that time.  Doctor said he was seeing cataracts earlier due to the air pollution.  

I had 20/20 in one eye and 20/15 in the other.  I loved it.  My eyes had kept me from getting a job with the FBI as an investigator.  I was so happy to be able to see for the first time in my life!

I had to show you this picture.  I think my tile guy, bless his heart, is auditioning for my next male nude!

Some women like  large biceps, or hairy chests and neanderthal unibrows.  I have always been a sucker for a nice tight male buttock.  But doesn't the tile look good?

We can move furniture back tonight.  And they will be here bright and early on Monday to start the hall and the den.  The dogs will have the doggy spa for the first three days.  

Now I Have Seeing Eye Dogs

Lousy ones at that.  I have tripped over DiNozzo at least 12 times already this morning.

Danielle says in her truthbomb today, when you feel good, you act smarter.  I can attest to that !

We were at the ER until about Midnight last night.  But the verdict was that I have a 1.5 cm tear in the sclera, the white part of my eye.  It is sore but not like when I tore the cornea.  That was intense!

I have some antibiotic ointment that goes in four times a day and make me see through a cloud, so I typing while I can still see clearly.  I can feel it is swollen a bit, I feel lopsided.

We had a nice mother's day, except for the eye thing, but that happened before we left home.  I told Frank I had poked the plant stake in my eye and he nodded and went on about his business.  I even asked him to look at it, and he nodded and went on about his business.

Then later Carrie says, Mom, your eye looks really bad.  Six other people agreed and Frank thought it good to get aboard.  By 9 PM last night, he was saying my eye was ready to fall out and explode!

It was pretty sore, but not painful.  The eye heals very fast so I will be off the endangered list soon.

The house is totally in chaos, bedroom furniture is in the living room.  I couldn't find my underwear drawer last night when I went to take a bath.  My closet full of clothes are piled on the bed in Frank's office, who knows what I will find to wear today.

Ahhhh, soon it will all be over and my kingdom will be restored to peaceful quilting once again.

Emergency!

We have two entrants and two prizes!  LOL

I guess Mothers Day Weekend is not the time to have a giveaway.

To be fair, since Anne of the Desert posted first she gets to choose which one she wants. The wallet set or the chicken and the pig.  And SonJa gets the other.  If you would send your snail mails info to

obed101(at)cox.net

I will get it off at least by Wednesday or Thursday because I am currently sitting I the emergency room waiting to see about my eye.  Frank says it looks way worse than It did earlier.  I can't see it so I have to rely on my Mr. high Alert.

I am sure I will be fine, this is not the worst I have had!

glen