A Visit to the Opthalmologist

In Which the News Ranges From Bad to Fantastic.

Bad is that it's not my imagination, I am going blind. Under different circumstances, this would totally freak me out, as visually oriented as I am, but...

Good is that the problem is an easy fix! Yes, I do have cataracts, but things have changed a lot lately in cataract surgery. No longer do they remove the cornea and lens, and you're bandaged up for next to forever, you never really get good vision back, and you have to wear those ugly half-spherical glasses. According to the very nice doctor I visited this morning, he'll be able to do the procedure in his office, with no general anesthesia, it'll take about 10 minutes of actual surgery per eye, bandages for maybe 2 days, complete healing in a month, AND...

Fantastic is that since what he's doing is replacing the lens (through a teeny tiny incision at the edge of the cornea), the lens can correct my life-long near-sightedness, and I will never have to wear glasses to see more than 18" past my nose again!!! I may need reading glasses, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get there.

Good also is that other than the cataracts, the eyes look good, nice healthy nerves and retinas and such. This is a real relief, let me tell you.

Medicare says one must wait until a certain degree of impairment of vision has occurred before they will pay for the cataract surgery, and I'm not there yet. In the meantime, the doctor has changed my glasses prescription, which is going to represent a significant improvement, and we'll re-evaluate in six months.

Now I can quit boring you with medical crap for a while! Aren't you glad?

On the knitting front, MS3, Part deux has progressed to row 266, and inches closer to the end with every day I can work on it.

I started K3P3 ribbing on the practice sock about 1" or so above the turning of the heel, and there's now about 1.5" of ribbing completed. I originally wound the hank of yarn into two balls, one somewhat smaller than the other, and I still have quite a bit left on the smaller ball, so I'm doing good on yarn, too! I figure I'll rib to the point where my calf really starts swelling out, or the small ball is gone, whichever comes first. That way I KNOW I'll have enough yarn to knit the Second Sock.

As there has been no embroidery done, there's nothing to report there.

Before I go, I really MUST mention the weather. Sorry about that, but the past two days have been totally gorgeous, highs in the upper 70's, lows in the low 50's, with severe clear skies, blue as can be, and not a hint of a whisper of a wisp of a cloud. Autumn really IS here! I've thrown open the windows and turned off the A/C, and switched to the cool weather blankets on my bed. Joy!!!