Sorry for the long silence. I feel like I have been asleep for most of the last two weeks, since my retina surgery. As my sister noted, the surgery itself took four hours, nearly twice as long as expected, very long for eye surgery. It was outpatient surgery, but it took me many hours afterward to wake up enough to go home; though I went in at 6:30 a.m., I was one of the last patients out. Ever since, my days have been cycles of sleep, eye drops, medication, food, sleep, eye drops, food, medication, sleep . . . interrupted by frequent doctor visits. I have been reading even email only every few days and have managed only a couple of actual replies. In many ways, I feel like I still haven’t woken from the surgery.

This week I can finally feel that I am getting stronger when I am awake, however. And the surgery was successful: my retina is firmly reattached, and when my eye patch is off, I have some vision even with the lens removed. My next goal will be to get my eyelids working again.

Yesterday’s visit to Dr. Harris marks a milestone: After two weeks of sitting up, I no longer have to be upright! I can now sleep on my side (either) or stomach. The first thing I did when we got home yesterday was to lie down on my bed for a nap. Blessed relief! I cannot describe how strong is the urge to lie down when you cannot. But not sleeping on my back has its own challenges. I have always moved a lot during sleep. Even with pillows at my back and a lump bound to my back to make lying on it uncomfortable, I was a challenge to police. Karen lost a lot of sleep trying to watch over me. I cannot tell how much sleep I got myself; today again I spent mostly dozing—upright in my chair when no one is here.

So, again, thank you for all the positive thoughts, and forgive me for not replying. I trust all this sleep is therapeutic, but I don’t know when I will finally be awake enough again to feel like life has resumed. In the meantime, keep those bad jokes coming! Turns out I can still laugh.