I just washed the dishes!

I’m getting back to normal life, improving by leaps and bounds—at least, that is how it feels. Yesterday, I took no pain killers; showered and shampooed by myself; wore a pullover T shirt instead of a button-up shirt; was awake (if not entirely alert) for twelve hours straight; had a long visit with friends without dozing off; ate some normal (still soft, but not soup!) food, which I got for myself; pooped; watched TV; and did some research online. Such are the earmarks of nearly normal life.

I am weak from five weeks (!) of inactivity. I have lost a lot of upper-body strength, and my diminished three-dimensional perception leaves me feeling a little wobbly—it’s not quite vertigo, but a sense of unsteadiness and a tendency toward motion sickness. How profoundly reliant on binocular sight we humans are! It will take me some time and experience to adjust to being temporarily monocular.

Regarding my sight, my understanding is that I can expect to be pretty much in a holding pattern for the next five months. All three of my doctors repeatedly stress that I suffered a severe trauma and that I need time to heal. I have some vision in my left eye now (when my eye is held open). I can see light and motion and make out shapes even without a lens. The lens will wait, I assume, until the surgery to remove the silicone oil, in about five months. I have a black area at the center of my vision in my left eye, due most likely to hemorrhaging behind the retina; I also have a clear area within the black that appears to me to be getting bigger. My hope is that the black will disappear as the blood clears away. I picture the black getting erased or chipped or eaten away, bit by bit, as the underlying cells heal.

The other part of the challenge to my vision is my eyelids. I will need another surgery to reconstruct my lower eyelid, most likely in early December. I have been growing new tissue on the lid since Dr. Polonski debrided it some weeks ago. He will graft some cartilage and skin from behind my ear to finish it. I may lose my “Yamaguchi ears” in the process, which I have always been fond of, though apparently sticking straight out is not the preferred aesthetic. One more change in the mirror to look forward to. More concerning to me is my upper eyelid, which is still not yet functioning. Dr. Polonski’s attitude is to stay patient and positive. In the original surgery, he repaired the lid layer by layer and thought everything looked good. That said, there was concussive damage to the nerve that controls the muscles of the lid, and it needs time to heal. That, along with clearing the black, is my primary focus. After all, what good will a functioning eye be if I cannot open my eyelid?

So join me, if you will, in envisioning me with two open, clear eyes—and always a big, big smile. Thank you for smiling back!

Hi everybody, Amaranth here, Lynne’s sister from Mexico…

Lynne is recovering from her surgery on Tuesday. She has more pain and fatigue than the past 2 weeks, but to our eyes, at last,  she is looking better.

The surgery took over 4 hours because of the amount of trauma that had to be addressed. Dr. Harris found her retina detached in patches. There were a few tears that were repaired with laser and her lens was removed.  Blood was removed from the eyeball and an oil bubble placed in her eye to hold pressure against the retina to keep it in place.  It will be removed in a few months in another surgery.

She is recuperating in a chair at home, her eye dressed and covered by a plastic shield.  She must stay in an upright, sitting position day and night to give the retina the best advantage to heal where it is repaired, so she is propped and wedged tighter than a tick by pillows and towels to keep her from leaning backward, forward or sideways.   We’ve heard of others who have had retina surgery that had to lie face down so Lynne is not complaining.

Tomorrow we see the surgeon who reconstructed her face.

We have been told to expect one or two more surgeries in the future.

Thanks for all your loving thoughts and well wishes. Thanks to those friends who have been keeping in touch by email, those sending cards and flowers.   Your support keeps us thankful and hopeful and keeps Lynne smiling.

I’m not in pain: regular medication keeps any discomfort at bay. I think I am benefiting in this respect from damage to the nerve to my face—which I can appreciate and not rue, since, as of this morning, I don’t think it is permanent.

I keep my left eye covered under a loose moist dressing. As long as it’s covered, I look pretty normal. I even wear my glasses over the dressing. Without the dressing, I’m a distressing sight.

My unhurt eye gets tired pretty quickly, so I have very limited periods of normal clear sight. I can read or look at a computer screen for only a few minutes at a time before the letters blur on me. I have to blink a lot to read. [These limits make it challenging to keep up with emails, so please be understanding if I don’t respond individually to all of your lovely notes of support.] I can watch TV or look at people longer because I don’t have to keep details in focus.

I can converse easily. I can eat—soft food only to avoid pressure on the broken bone above my teeth. I can’t open my mouth very wide. My top lip is still partially numb. The numbness left my bottom lip a few days after the surgery, so I quit dribbling, thank goodness. My mother and older sister have been cooking delicious, comforting food for me. And I just now managed to scramble a couple of eggs for myself for dinner (hurrah!).

Fatigue hits me hard and fast. At some point every day, even when I think I’ve been taking it easy, I discover I’ve overextended my energy and have to collapse. I constantly underestimate the energy required to heal. I need to sleep and rest more.

For 48 hours after the surgery, I had to have my dressing changed, and usually medication put in my eye, every half hour around the clock. The first night we had the help of the wonderful nursing staff at St. Joe’s. They sent us home the day after the surgery though (!), and since then my partner, with help from my sisters, has done an extraordinary job of taking care of me. [My sisters arrived to look after me within days after my accident.] I (and my caregivers) have seven medications to manage now: four drops and an ointment that go into my eye, and two pills. This is complicated, as they all must be administered at different frequencies and none can be given together. My partner and I have finally got a system worked out, and using two alarm clocks, I am now able to keep track of the schedule pretty well myself. I cannot administer the eye medications to myself though, so I need help at least every two hours, and every fifteen minutes for an hour and a half at the beginning and end of every day. And I have beaucoup doctors’ appointments: four this past week; one with each of three of my doctors (surgeon, ophthamologist, and retina specialist) next week. These visits can really throw the medication schedule off.