The Christmas Letter I Didn't Send

Christmas 2013

Dear Family & Friends:

This has been a year of healing for our family – healing from grief and health and life issues that began in 2012 (which is why we did not send out Christmas greetings last year).

Grief & Loss (or skip down to Healing or Today)

March 2012 began with me (Susan) visiting my parents in Michigan for a one-week vacation, and staying on to provide (along with my brother) hospice care to our father. He suffered from COPD as a result of a life-long smoking habit. His last few years, although painless, were not happy ones as his health declined. All I can say is, “Don’t start. If you’ve started, stop.” Dad passed away the end of March.

After a short return to my home state to get things set up, I returned to Michigan to stay with my mother, who is legally blind and cannot live alone. My brother and I packed up our family home, got Mama relocated to an assisted living facility 20 minutes from his home, and put her house up for sale. It was quite a saga, but the house on the little lake in southwest Michigan sold quickly, and I returned home in mid-July, driving a U-haul filled with furniture and memories of my family home.

As a result of the extended stay in Michigan (4½ months), I had retired from my job effective April 1 and now had to figure out what to do with my life: stay retired or find a new job? A former co-worker from let me know her company was hiring; was I interested? Yes, and I interviewed.

Complicating matters was that in mid-March, while caring for Dad, I suffered what was determined to be a Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVD) in my left eye. Or, as I call them, “big honkin’ floaters.” In August, I suffered a PVD in my right eye. After meeting with a retinal specialist, I decided to hold off surgery if I got the new job. And I did.

I started working October 8, 2012, for a company that provides project management for construction of wireless (i.e., cell phone) infrastructure and upgrades. It’s heavy on the computer work, primarily in Microsoft Excel, and interesting trying to view computer screens with big honkin’ floaters that swoop down into your field of vision, and swoop back out as you move your eyes. Left eye: left to right; right eye: right to left. Kind of like old-fashioned windshield wipers.

On December 22, 2012, my husband's brother suffered complications from blood clots after an otherwise successful surgery. Steve got the call while he was working, and made arrangements to come home and pack a bag for Wisconsin. Our daughter and son-in-law were on their way from Michigan for their first Christmas together at our home. Fortunately, they arrived before Steve left. A few hours later, while still driving, Steve found out his brother had passed away. He continued on to say goodbye to his only sibling, then turned around and drove back home.

And on a side note, several other passings contributed to the cumulative sense of loss and grief we experienced in 2012.

Healing

A memorial service was held for my brother-in-law in February 2013, a lovely tribute to a unique, wonderful man. Friends from his many years in the travel business came to honor him, including one who flew in from New Zealand. In May, the family gathered to lay him to rest.

In March, shortly before the one-year anniversary of my Dad’s death, I had surgery on my left eye to remove the floaters (vitrectomy). The down-side of this surgery is that it speeds up the development of cataracts. Even as I waited for a quieter period at work to schedule the vitrectomy on my right eye, the vision in my left eye was deteriorating, slowly but surely.

On October 8, the one-year anniversary of starting my new job, I had the vitrectomy on my right eye. And on December 17, I had cataract surgery on my left eye. Three days later I got a contact lens for my right eye, so when it’s in I can see so very clearly to drive and watch TV without glasses! Now I just need to get used to reading glasses and the need to carry them around with me everywhere. I anticipate that in April or so I might have to have cataract surgery on my right eye. Three eye surgeries in one year: crazy. But I can emphatically state that cataract surgery is very easy, so if you’re nervous and have been putting it off, don’t. FYI: Due to my mother’s blindness, she does NOT know about any of my eye surgeries; mum’s the word!

So, eyes have healed (mostly); we have passed the one-year anniversaries of the deaths of our family and friends; and we are on the road to recovery. We could not have made it through without our family and friends. Those of you on Facebook saved me while I was living in Michigan last year, and continue to uplift me daily.

Today

I end our story on a positive note, with renewed optimism and hopefulness for 2014. Love, peace, and blessings to you and yours this holiday season.

Eyes a Metaphor for My Life?

In my last post I told the story of my eye problems, which started during the period in which my father was dying.

When I left off, I had made an appointment with my optometrist, 3 days after cataract surgery, to see if he could help me regulate my vision.

This guy is awesome. I mean, he's kind of different, but he has always given me great prescriptions. I just knew he could fix me up.

And he did. As soon as I told him cataract surgery, and asked if a contact lens for my right eye was an option, he jumped up and said, "Come with me!" He tested my eyes, popped open a box of soft contacts, put it in my eye, and OH MY GOSH I CAN SEE AGAIN CLEARLY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ALMOST TWO YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!

This is not to say there are not still issues. With the contact in, my distance vision is "normal", which is a wonderful feeling. But having to now wear reading glasses sucks, as I have pretty much always taken my glasses off to read, even though I have bifocals. However, as soon as my right eye needs cataract surgery, this won't be an option anyway, so it gives me some time to get used to the idea.

But here are the thoughts I had Friday as I am exulting in my new-found vision:

Maybe I haven't really, totally dealt with my grief over my father and mother and family home. Or maybe we don't ever really get over it. 

Maybe my eye problems gave me something to focus on (no pun intended) other than what was going on in my life. Or maybe they just haven't allowed me to move on, since they started during such an awful time of my life, and the awfulness has just continued in the form of my eye issues.

Maybe now that the last vestiges of that period of time are being dealt with and barriers removed, true healing will begin and life will resolve itself into its new normal.

PVDs and Vitrectomies and Cataracts, Oh My!

During the three-week period in March 2012 in which my father was dying and my brother and I were providing hospice care, I suffered a PVD -- posterior vitreous detachment  -- in my left eye. At the time I only knew that all of a sudden I had "big honkin' floaters" that swooped down from left to right and impacted my ability to see clearly. Moving my eye caused them to swoop away, only to repeat, repeat, thousands of times each day. Tiresome. After the eye doctor determined that nothing more serious had happened, I just figured I would have to live with it. See me in six months, he said.

During the ensuing months, my brother and I packed and gave away everything in our family home. We settled our mother into an assisted living facility near my brother's home in Michigan, an hour-and-a-half from the home into which my parents and I had moved my senior year of high school, just after my dad's retirement from the Air Force. Forty years on the little lake in southwest Michigan, only memories now. The house was put on the market and sold rather quickly despite a poor housing market and the house in need of upgrades and modernization. 

I finally returned home to Minnesota in mid-July, driving a U-haul home with furniture I couldn't bear to part with (my dad's chair, my parents' old double-bed). Now I had to really confront the grief over the year's events. With no job to return to (having had to retire so I could remain in Michigan), I was an emotional mess. For a while I considered staying retired, but that's not my nature... and I missed my income. Living on just my husband's pension, although doable, was not enticing. And sitting home all day gave me too much to think about. I started perusing the want ads and job sites, looking for a good opportunity.

In mid-August I had a follow-up appointment with my opthamologist about the floaters, which he now diagnosed as a PVD. He gave me a referral to a retinal specialist for September to discuss surgical options. A week later, the right eye went. Big honkin' floaters and flashing lights. Back to the doctor. No retinal tears, but another PVD. Now the right eye floaters swoop down from the right to the left, and both eyes together are sort of like old fashioned windshield wipers, where they both go toward the middle and then back to the sides. Over and over and over again.

Meanwhile, a former co-worker contacted me that her current company is hiring; would I be interested? Yes, but will I be able to handle the heavy computer work with all this swooping in and out? I interviewed about the same time in September as my appointment with the retinal specialist.

The RS informed me I was a candidate for a vitrectomy, which removes the vitreous gel in the eye, along with the floaters. Recovery is less traumatic than retinal surgery. The main complication is that it speeds up the development of cataracts; within six months to two years, I would need cataract surgery. So instead of two surgeries, I would ultimately have four. I've always been squeamish about my eyes, so this was a difficult decision. I decided to wait on the outcome of my job interview. No job= surgery. Job = wait on surgery. I got the job.

Fast-foward to March 2013. It's time to have the first surgery. All went well; no more blobs in my eye. Hmmm; I will have to do this on the right eye, too, but we're too busy at work so it will have to wait until fall. 

Over the summer I can tell my vision is going downhill in my left eye. When I meet with the RS in September to set up my next surgery, I do in fact have a cataract that is now bad enough to operate on in my left eye. Why am I at the fast end of the spectrum for cataract development? However, cataract surgery will have to wait until the second vitrectomy. (I am just about to switch insurance companies, and don't want to take a chance that my new insurance won't cover the vitrectomy. Cataract surgery is much more common.)

I had the second vitrectomy in early October. Slower recovery, very "tippy" and light-headed, quite possibly due to visual problems now that the left eye is worse. Thirty-day follow-up is with my opthamologist since he will be doing the cataract surgery, which is scheduled for mid-December.

Eight days before Christmas, on a Tuesday morning, I had cataract surgery. I was very nervous. One, they told me I would be less sedated and I would be looking at a bright light. Huh? Will I see things coming at me? Hear what's going on? I don't want to know it's happening. Two, and this was my bigger worry, how will I see with one eye needing glasses and the other not? I won't be able to see close up with my left eye, and I CAN see close up with my right eye, glasses or not.

Surgery went well, it really was a piece of cake. An hour after they wheeled me into the surgical room, I was HOME. No pain, just a little scratchiness that was relieved by Tylenol, and that was only for one day. At the next day's follow-up, my vision is 20/40 in my left eye... well enough to drive. However, I removed the left lens from my glasses so I could see the television better. It's too strong, but okay if I don't move my head much. The opthamologist told me it will be 4-6 weeks before my vision stabilizes. Yikes! Will I have to wait that long to get new glasses? I'm already going crazy.

Thursday I went back to work for 6 hours. Trying to see the computer screen is a challenge. Glasses on, glasses off. Cover up my left eye, take the cover off. Driving me NUTS. I called my optometrist (who has given me wonderful prescriptions in the past) and made an appointment for the next day.

To be continued.