Today’s Note

Reflection on LASIK

 

I feel like those movies when a person goes into confession with the priest. Forgive me, father, it’s been a week since my last blog post. A lot has happened because part of that was spent enjoying the holiday celebrations with my family and cooking for 14 people on Christmas Day.

I started at 6:30 a.m. when my son woke us and his baby sister up to see what Santa Claus brought under the tree. He was good though, teaching sissy that they had to take turns opening presents so we could all enjoy what Santa brought. After breakfast, I began all the preparations to make a huge holiday meal and pretty much stayed in the kitchen until everyone arrived. I love cooking and am pretty good at it, so it was an enjoyable time.

Many of the days leading up to Christmas were spent healing my eyes from LASIK. I’ve had poor vision most of my life. I remember when my teacher told my mom I needed glasses. I was 13 years old and, unfortunately, had already spent a lot of my childhood being picked on for being chubby and sensitive and artistic. When it came time to select my glasses, I cried and begged for contact lenses. I remember saying to her…”Mom, the kids are all so mean, please don’t give them another reason to call me names.” Fortunately, she allowed me to get contact lenses in addition to glasses, even though we didn’t have the money for the extra expense, and I’ve been wearing them ever since.

I’ve been interested in LASIK for at least a decade. For some reason, I decided this was the time to take the plunge. I did my research, found a good facility, checked to ensure the doctor had excellent credentials and was licensed, that the facility was in good standing with the Better Business Bureau and read everything I could in the company’s literature and on the Internet. What I failed to do was get more information on monovision. The topic came up during my eye exam to see if I was a good LASIK candidate.

Monovision is when your eyes are corrected differently with the laser. One is corrected for distance and the other for reading. The theory is that our eyes change as we age and without the correction, we will still need reading glasses. They gave me an example of what my vision would look like and it seemed great. The pre-op doctor told me that some people’s brains have trouble adjusting to monovision, but most adjusted fine.

I had no idea that I could have gone to my eye doctor and asked for monovision contacts to see how I would adjust. I wish I had done that because it would have changed my decision. My bad for not knowing all the facts.

I’m 11 days into LASIK now and my eyes are healing well. The first few days were rough. Not seeing well, not adapting to the monovision change and serious dry eyes even with all the drops. Apparently, my eyes healed quickly and the drops given after the surgery dehydrated my eyes which caused my vision to stay wonky. I’ve been taking Restasis for 5 days to get moisture back into my eyes from the inside out and things are looking up (pun intended).

We went on a nature walk the Saturday and I was amazed to see the snow-capped mountains in the distance from my right eye as clear as I’ve ever seen. It was magical. Reading is getting a little better out of my left eye, but being on the computer is really tough. I have to start writing my book manuscript soon and I pray all heals before that deadline lands.

I have another follow-up appointment this week to see how the Restasis is helping. I know for a fact LASIK worked, but there’s still more fine tuning to do. I’m seriously hoping my brain will switch soon to monovision and all will be well. This is a lot of personal stuff, which I rarely share on my blog, but I know there are some folks who are worried about me. I wanted to let them know I’m doing better every day even though it is frustrating to not be 100%.

I seriously hope many of you are still enjoying time off this week or still more family time leading up to the New Year. Best wishes!

A Sight To Behold

 

Please forgive the little break I’m about to take on my blog, but it’s not something I can really control. You see, I decided to do LASIK eye surgery on Friday as my birthday present to myself. Unlike the miracle ads where people wake up the next day and can see 20/20 vision, I still have yet to regain my full vision.

The procedure definitely worked. My vision is much better that it was before (which was very poor without my contacts/glasses), but it’s not well enough that I can effectively live my normal life right now, and it feels somewhat devastating at the moment. The LASIK Center tells me to have patience and healing takes time. My friends and family are being so supportive too. I know all is well and that it will be OK. I trust I was well-taken care of. I’m not supposed to be on the computer or reading or working, which is terribly hard for me.

I’m taking a healing leave of absence until after Christmas. That means no blogging, no Facebook, no Twitter and no texting. Is this hard? Heck yes! But I also feel like this is a life lesson right now in taking care of myself. I’m going to chill out, rest my eyes, take some much-needed family time this week, and keep affirming to myself that all is well and that my Christmas miracle of perfect vision will be here before Santa’s arrival.

Here’s wishing all of you a very Artful Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanza.

MIA and Deadlines

 

It’s that crazy time of year where we have all our normal work to do and then pile holiday festivities on top of it. For me, there is the added deadline of my book. All of my projects are due this Friday and I’ve been like a little elf in my studio working my metal like a madwoman. This is why I’ve been MIA on my blog.

Today’s post is just a small one to let everyone know that I will be back to the routine very soon. It’s also a teaser to ask you to please return here on Thursday, Dec. 15th for a very special announcement of an online project that I’m participating in with more than a dozen amazing creative women in our industry. I can’t say anymore, except to come back in 2 days to read all about it.

As I work today in my studio, I’m looking at a winter wonderland of snow. There is a baby deer and her mama who have bedded down in a nice warm spot under the eves of our house right next to our central heater. They look up whenever I start pounding away with my hammer, but the noise doesn’t frighten them enough to move from their toasty little home. The pic above is taken in my front yard. Winter certainly makes for some beautiful pictures.

He called me a “magpie”

 

I invited our neighbor over for dinner this past Saturday because his wife of 35-years is out-of-town and his diet for 3 weeks has consisted of beer, popcorn and cookies. I should have invited him over earlier for a home-cooked meal, but with my husband traveling, I wasn’t doing a lot of cooking myself. Kids are fine with pizza and chicken nuggets. Come to think of it, my neighbor might have been too.

As we were sitting down at the table eating and chatting, Dan asked me what took me so long to be neighborly when he and Barb moved in last year. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to be unfriendly. I was just busy juggling the same thing so many women my age are balancing: work and motherhood.

I may have been slow to warm up, but then my neighbors did a huge favor for me in January, and I’m eternally grateful to them. Since then, I’ve been trying to show my appreciation in small ways whenever I can, like making sure Dan eats at least one serving of vegetables while Barb is out-of-town.

I’ve also come to learn that Dan is a big jokester. He loves to tease me and try to get my goat up whenever he can. My father has the same personality, so it’s pretty hard to catch me off guard. I was trained to think fast on my feet or whither under my dad’s caustic wit.

At one point in the dinner conversation, Dan called me a “magpie.” I laughed and asked him exactly how I reminded him of a funny little black-and-white bird. He said that I can seem aloof at first, but once I get to talking, I can chatter noisely and endlessly. I could tell he felt a little guilty by the surprised look on my face and quickly added: “They’re highly intelligent birds you know!”

I’ve been thinking about the comparison the past few days and realize it’s quite a compliment. I googled magpies and found out they’re notorious kleptomaniacs, collecting anything brightly colored that catches their eye. A magpie snatches up glittering treasures – gum wrappers, tinsel, metal bits, barbed wire, etc. - to incorporate into its nest. Also, magpies are known for swooping down and stealing shiny pieces of jewelry.

As you know from my last post that it’s Spring cleaning time in my studio. Thinking about the magpie analogy, I took a quick picture of my workbench yesterday as I was cleaning up from my recent jewelry-making projects. It’s quite the little glittery nest of stuff, isn’t it?

Where’s the do-over?

Sorry folks for the strange new blog look. I was checking my email this morning and a WordPress notice popped up that there is a new theme called “Rusty Grunge”. They got me. I’m a sucker for anything that promises artsy grunge.

When I clicked the button to preview what my blog would look like in this new theme, it somehow changed  it permantely. Ugh!

I searched high and low for the “do-over” button. I’m pretty technical, but I couldn’t find the one-click answer. I need the Control-Z option for WordPress (like the button you can choose in Windows if you do something stupid and realize it right away.)

Unfortunately, I’m not at my computer with all my photo files and won’t be until next week. So sorry for the strange-looking change, but I’ll get things back to normal as soon as possible. Who knows, maybe the tech support guys will know the right button to press to make things revert to normal. (grin)

Merry Christmas to all…