Cataract Eye Surgery and a Dementia Test for Me

Two Wednesdays. No three Wednesdays because the first Wednesday I forgot and had a taste of a banana in the morning before I realized I wasn't supposed to eat and maybe only take a pill with a sip of water. I flunked.

Two days of preparation with eye drops. A cell phone with an alarm comes in SO handy.

My patient brother was to drive me again on the second Wednesday. His wife picked me up while he was at bridge. I was pushed to her car in front of the building I got in and she handed me glasses to wear. I was wearing a shield over my right eye. When I got home I rested and looked at the instructions for eye drops. Didn't think I needed the patch for Wednesday night choir practice. I love the music and although I didn't enter in fully with the singing, I was getting ready for Sundays.

I wouldn't be able to drive there, so as usual for Wednesday night I got picked up and brought home. On the way home, I looked with  just that left eye that had the surgery and there were rays proceeding out of the lights. However, when I looked with my right eye, there were no rays proceeding out of the same lights.

Midday I saw my eye doctor. I told him about the no rays in the right eye. He also was pleased with the machine tests that his assistant did.

There are a couple of typos in my book that perhaps might not have happened if I wasn't going through eye surgery, but life doesn't have to be perfect!

Stress! It felt like I was called to the boss's office!  My family confronted me in December about my poor night driving! It was a meeting at my brother's house with basically three adults, and not with my niece and her friend who had filed the family complaint. I admitted that night driving was hard and it seemed to me that Huntsville had poor street lights. I agreed to stop driving at night and others were to drive me. I would look into cataract surgery. Paula drove me Monday night. Gladys or her husband Charlie drove me to choir practice Wednesday night.

Stress! Car trouble and finances to buy a new car!

Stress! Mice in my apartment that I wrote about in January.

Stress! Dog Ziggy has a tumor in his spleen and I can have it removed, or his health will go downhill!

Stress! One Friday morning I just canceled substitute teaching. I hadn't been sleeping and was sure I had cancer to something. I went to my doctor's office without an appointment. They scheduled an appointment for me later and included the test to see if I have Alzheimer’s! Well I don't have it, but because of the stress, I tested positive. This hurt so much to hear the nurse say "MCI or dementia." She didn't know I was coming out with a book about that subject! If this were true, my family would have a lot on their plate with me!

As it says in that book, however, depression can cause false results with that test and really an individual needs a proper diagnosis with a neurologist and a MRI test which my late husband had.

Back to the cataract eye surgery. I love that I had it done and I can see at night. I can see bright, beautiful colors, and, LOL, I can see dust in my apartment! Now I can wear eye makeup and don't look so plain.

A week later after the right eye was done, I could drive at night! The eye doctor was very pleased. For my first night of night driving I went to a calligraphy class for modern calligraphy instruction--the calligraphy design on my book for "Getting Through the" in the title. Modern Calligraphy--such a great new hobby with brushes.

It has been suggested that as we age we learn new things. Well I am learning the alto part in my church choir and now I am learning a new brush calligraphy design. And I can drive at night!