Low points...

One of the low points I've had about my eyes is discovering that the reason that I have not been able to get a good prescription on my new glasses is that my corneas are too dry to adequately find the right correction.  At my last appointment, I was told that I should not come back for three months, long enough to see if the Restasis will help me.

The problem with three months is that you have 60 days from the purchase of your glasses at Walmart to change out the prescription or frames or whatever problems you have.  So, that means that I will have to buy new lenses for both my glasses and sunglasses.  New lenses for both will be $575, when I just spent $642 getting my new set of glasses.  I just don't see how I'll do that.

I am actually fairly good at living with a poor prescription on my glasses.  After all, I went 18 months, I think, once my eyes really began to change prescription-wise.  That is because try-focals—the best way to correct my eyes—are expensive lenses.  Plus, I need the expensive lightweight lenses because of the nerves on the side of my head.  I have to have the lightest glasses presence as possible.

So, what is bothering me is that this set of lenses are not correct and won't be corrected unless I pay to replace them ... as in I would be paying double for them.  I tried to ask for one more appointment with the optometrist (he had already changed my prescription twice since the original appointment), but he said that he was in agreement with the ophthalmologist regarding it being futile to try to find a correction whilst my corneas are so dry.

SIGH.

The other low point that comes with my new normal in the orb department is that, when I put in the drops, I cannot see clearly for a long while afterwards.  This is worse with the gel drops, often taking a half hour for my vision to clear.  Strangely, the gel is not quite so bad, because I can usually see again in about 15-20 minutes.  The extra-strength glycerin takes about 10 minutes, give or take.

It is rather disconcerting to be in a position of being completely unable to read or discern much of anything.  Whilst I have because quite adept, as I have written, at putting gel into my eyes, I have not become accustomed to the lack of vision associated with moisturizing my corneas at all.  It oft is quite a mental and emotional battle for me.  Morning and evening I put in the gel.  Then, throughout the day, I alternate between the gel drops and the glycerin ones, starting first with the gel drops.  So, all throughout the day, even two hours (or sooner if the dryness and pain is too much to bear), I have to battle this lack of vision.

When I realized that I would never be able to run to save myself ... when I realized the impact asthma has on my lungs when I try to run even a very, very short distance ... I was felled by that knowledge.  It was such a sobering and strange realization for me.  Each time I put stuff into my eyes, I am reminded that I am doing so because of the danger of losing my vision beyond just whilst my eyes are absorbing the goop I have put into them.  Like I said ... a mighty battle.

I could say that, fortunately, the Restasis drops, which I must put in every 12 hours like clockwork (I have yet to achieve clockwork status), do not distort my vision.  However, they burn my eyes and they make it feel as if I have something in them.  It is difficult to stop myself from standing in front of the mirror to look for an eyelash or something.  I have to keep telling myself, over and over again, "It's the drops.  Just wait."

I trying to tell myself "At least it's not chemo."  For I think that chemo must be the most difficult thing a person can ever do.  I mean, the first time you have chemo, you really don't know just how bad it will be.  The second time, you know.  And that's not even the worst part.  The worst part is that most chemo is, I believe, cumulative in its effects.  So, the second time is worse than the first.  The third time is worst than the first and the second.  And so and so forth.  I honestly cannot fathom the intestinal fortitude it must take to sit down in a chemo infusion chair.

Even so, despite my eye travails not being as bad as chemo, they have felled me and have left me feeling rather isolated and weary.

All of this is just so inescapable....