Tuesday, August 23, 2011

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

Today we did our yearly eye appointments.  Over the years, my appointment has always consisted of the doctor telling me my eyes are getting worse and the prescription needed to be upped to some new ungodly number.  Last year though, my numbers stayed about the same foe the first time, well, ever.  As I mentioned earlier, today we went back and although I was hopeful for consistency in my prescription, I didn't expect it due to it not changing last year.  But I was totally surprised to find out that not only had my prescription stayed the same, but my astigmatism had decreased, something she said happens rarely.  This is great news and she said because of the last two visits, I am pretty much a candidate for corrective eye surgery.  After 33 years of poor, declining eye sight, I might finally be able to have a surgery to correct my issues.  Not doing it quite yet; I want to give it one more year of making sure my eyes stay the same, but I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Fingers crossed! 

The last 3 days of pics including today's:

August 21st, 2011 - Day 233

August 22nd, 2011 - Day 234

August 23rd, 2011 - Day 235

Monday, August 22, 2011

Out of Gas

It's been a month and 8 days since my last post.  Hell, that is even longer than the month I was gone when I said I was quitting blogging and ended up coming back.  It wasn't from  a lack of wanting to by any means; hell, I wanted to update the blog.  But I just have had ZERO energy and then coupled with tragedy getting in the way, blogging just didn't win out in my list of things to do.

Last time I blogged, Jess was in recovery from her knee surgery and I was playing the part of caretaker.  Fast forward over a month later and nothing has really changed.  In fact, today is the very first day she can walk, but only at a 25% rate.  9 weeks later and she can only put 25% of her weight on that right leg!!!  Like I mentioned last time, she has been a wonderful patient and I even bought her a ring to show her my appreciation for being a good patient.  But good patient or not, I have still been responsible for almost everything in this house for the last 9 weeks.  Little by little she has been able to do more and more (as much as you can possibly do without being able to walk), but the 9 weeks has certainly drained so much out of me.  Work, make breakfast, work, make lunch, work, make dinner, and then start all over again.  I don't mind because I am doing what needs to be done, but it doesn't make me any less exhausted.  But the whole situation is getting better and more fun in our lives should follow.

If my lack of energy while Jess recovers was the only thing we had to worry about, I might have blogged sooner since the amount of stuff Jess has been able to do on her own has increased little by little.  But that isn't the only challenge that has come our way since my last post.  On August 7th, Jessica's mom passed away after a VERY long and VERY courageous battle with a disease that she battled for as long as I have known her.  She had been in pain for so long and it finally became too much.  In the end, it was the best for her, but it doesn't make things easier - especially for Jess.  If you remember, Jess lost her stepmom to cancer just last year.  How is it fair that she would lose her mom the very next year?  How is that fair to anyone to lose two parents in back to back years?  So, while we were already drained from this whole recovery process, the few days we were in the Bay Area for her final days just totally took the lack of energy to a whole new level. 

The good news is we had a wonderful remembrance party for her mom on Saturday and we can now begin the healing process while simultaneously begin to slowly get our lives back to some semblance of a normal life.  And speaking of normal, I AM still taking my daily pictures.  As it has been so long since I have posted, I can't possibly post all of the missed pictures.  Here are just a few of my favorites:

July 18th, 2011 - Day 199

July 20th, 2011 - Day 201

July 22nd, 2011 - Day 203

July 23rd, 2011 - Day 204

July 27th, 2011 - Day 208

August 2nd, 2011 - Day 214

August 10th, 2011 - Day 222

August 18th, 2011 - Day 230

August 19th, 2011 - Day 231

Fingers crossed normalcy is just around the corner.