I got my eye lasered yesterday. I meant to write an update about it, but I was feeling rather poorly.

The laser treatment itself went quite well. It was nicer than the last time in fact. You may remember that I complained that they seemed to not use quite enough anesthesia last time. This time the must have gotten the dosage right. Or perhaps it was just because the treatment was a little milder. But in any case I didn’t feel any pain. Not during and not right afterwards. So that was good.

I have to say, though, that I really hate getting local anesthesia. It’s an injection right under the eye. And it really hurts. And then the area starts tensing up. It’s one of the worst feelings I have ever tried. Thankfully it doesn’t last long.

And the laser treatment doesn’t last long either. I got some cloth or something over the left eye, to protect it. And then some metal contraption on the right eye to keep it open. And since I can’t see anything on the right eye, I was completely blind for the procedure of course. I could just feel the instrument, it felt like a pen or something like that, being put up to the eye. And a little pressure, but no pain. And then some 15-20 “shots” later it was done. And I could go home. Feeling okay, just a little woozy from the anesthesia and the diamox I had gotten beforehand.

Last time they gave me diamox tp take for three days after the procedure. They didn’t this time. And I did wonder about that. And, as it turned out, that was a mistake. Because when the anesthesia and painkillers wore off I started hurting. Pretty bad, too. It felt like it did at the beginning of all the pressure trouble. When the pressure was way too high in the right eye and I was in pain for a couple of days. Quite painful and not much fun at all. We called the hospital of course. I was pretty sure they’d ask me to come in, but instead they told me to take some diamox. I had some left over from the last time. So I took that. Along with some more painkillers. And it slowly worked. The pain lessened. When it was time to go to bed it was mostly gone. And today it seems to be all gone. So I’m feeling much better. Although now of course I am a bit dizzy from the diamox. But I can handle that for a few days. It’s normal after this procedure that the pressure rises for a bit. But hopefully then it should fall and who knows, maybe I’ll be lucky and it will be normal and stable and I won’t need any more procedures. And we all know how lucky I am.

At least I should hopefully have christmas and new years off now. And it’s back to the hospital in January to see what comes next.

Fingers crossed, as always, that things will work out as well as possible.

Today I got two very nice cards in the mail. From Laura and Desirée. Thank you both a million! They were a little hard to read because they were in cursive handwriting. But I managed it, which was very pleasing. And also Desirée sent me a present. I couldn’t resist opening it. It’s practically christmas, right? It’s a beautiful calendar with pictures of her family. And if you know her then you know she has a beautiful family. I do adore her kids. Much like goats they always manage to make me smile. Thank you, Desirée!

Today was a pretty good day. Imagine that.

I got a haircut. It was about time again. I never used to care about my hair. And now that I can barely see it in the mirror, I really don’t care. But it’s still nice to shed it every once in a while.

After the haircuttingcuttingcutting I went and spent some time with the goats. It was great, as it always is. They were in good shape and enjoyed the treats and scratches that I so generously provided.

A dad and his little son came by and looked at the goats.
“What do the goats say?” the father asked.
“Moooh?” the boy said.
“No, the say Maaaah” the father explained.
The boy looked back at the goats.
“MOOOOH!” he said.
Luckily the goats were not insulted by this.

Later that day, I was sitting at the computer when my doorbell rang. Once. My dad has a special way of ringing the bell so I can tell when it’s him. This was not it. And I wasn’t expecting any visitors. So normally I wouldn’t open the door. But I was expecting a package from Amazon… so I decided to take a chance and open the door. And luckily it was the mailman with a whopping big package from Amazon. It’s a little unnerving to open the door when you can’t see who it is. And you can’t make eye contact. And all that. But I could make out the red postman jacket. And when he said “I have this package for you” that was my second clue. I even managed to sign the electronic signature thing. And now I have a bunch of DVDs lying on my bed. Entertainment and escapism that will last a long, long time. Assuming I’ll keep my eyesight for that long.

I am still quite excited by my Amazon deal. Saving 800 dollars. Wow. I feel tempted to go back and buy more stuff. They had the complete Black Adder collection. The complete Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. The complete Frasier. Etcetera. Think of all the money I could save with 60-70% off. But maybe next year. I have been good to Amazon this christmas. In addition to the 300 bucks or so that I spent on myself I have also bought presents for the same amount of more. I have gotten some people some expensive stuff. More than was appropriate really. But oh well. It’s nice to have this financial freedom of sorts. And being able to make others happy. That’s a good feeling. It is much easier to be generous when you have enough to spare. Sugardaddyplume.

Oh yes, I also bought an audibook on Amazon. Did I mention that I had to delete a bunch of books from my wishlist there? Because I can no longer read them of course. Well, it occured to me to see if they had any of them as audiobooks. And I found Craig Ferguson’s autobiography, American On Purpose. I immediately bought it. I love Craig, I still listen to his talkshow every time I ride my exercise bike (which I’m trying to do twice a day again now by the way). So I knew I really wanted the book. I couldn’t buy it through Amazon though. They own another site, audible.com. So I had to sign up for that. Normally when signing up for sites and spending money and so on I do extensive google research. But I figured that since it was owned by Amazon it would be ok. So I was a little disapointed when I found out that I wouldn’t get a nice MP3 download. They have their own proprietary file format with DRM. If there’s something I hate then it’s proprietary file formats. And DRM. Add to that you have to install an audible download manager and a media manager to even get it to work. I also hate having to install surplus programs. I prefer to keep as few things as possible installed on my machine. So I kind of regretted not googling audible.com before signing up. I probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d known about all this. But after a couple of days I caved and installed it all and downloaded the book. And luckily their software works with my MP3 player. So I transferred the book onto it. And have been listening to it for a few days now. The quality isn’t that good really. But that’s what you get when you compress a 7 hour book into a 50mb file.

But all technicalities aside, I am really loving the book. It’s great to have that feeling again, of wanting to go to bed soon. Not to escape into dreams, but because I can’t wait to do some reading. It’s a nice way to end the day.

Now I am joining the Danish library service for the blind, Nota. I can get free audiobooks there. For keeps. So if that works well with my system and needs then that should be good. Maybe I’ll still buy some stuff on audible, for the more specialized, foreign stuff. They do have Stephen King books on Nota, I saw. So I’ll probably be doing some of those I think. It’s nice to be reading again, even if it’s not quite the same as physically having the book there and turning the pages. I will probably always miss that a little.

Oh yes, there is hospital news as well. I got a phonecall from the lady doctor specializing in lasers. Instead of a checkup on Tuesday I’ll be going in Monday morning for another laser treatment. So I was right in thinking I’d need that. Hopefully it will work and my right eye will depressurize and then things will be “normal”. Yes. It will be under local anesthesia again, so it will be over pretty quickly. But it’s not fun. That injection in the eyelid really hurts, albeit shortly. Then aftewards the doctor sort of massages the around the eye, I guess to spread the anesthesia. She did it pretty forcefully last time. It wasn’t nice. And then you get numb in the face and I’ll probably be banged up on diamox and tired and so on. I’ll probably be out of it for a couple of days again. But at least we’re nearing the end of things, presumeably. Laser the right eye and oil out of the left one in January.

And whatever else comes along.