Me .. and my pAtCh!

A Girl and her pAtCh!

pAtCh = my nickname - my online name - for many years. My brother gave me this nickname back in the old BBS chat days - I meet Hubs with this name. :) And, it was written like this!

I’ve been wearing my patch steadily for about a week or so now. I was asked to get used to complete darkness before I get the eye removed. To go about my daily business with the patch on. So far, there are many advantages to this!

• My day time pain has decreased – yahoo! So that’s been a plus. This means that at work, it’s been much better. (Though, a REAL bad Wednesday last week … not sure why – so I’ll keep track of what’s different this week).

• I can read a lot better – no more “extra” glare from the 2nd bit of a screen (ie, right now, as I’m looking up at the screen typing, when I look to the left of the screen, there’s and extra bit of it in my field of view – ANNOYING! So, with the patch, that’s been drastically decreased.

• Driving – SO MUCH BETTER!! I love that part of things. Though, I’m scared as shit to drive, since well, I can’t see anything … anything to the right of me. I’m adjusting though.

• It’s sexy – I don’t care what any says. I think the patch looks damn sexy on me. It’s like a great part of me … I have pretty looking patches done up – so it’s like a beautiful accessory on me. I love it!

DISADVANTAGES!!!

• Walking around in public – grocery shopping, Crappy Tire – Wal-Mart – it’s strange having nothing there. Total darkness next to me is a very unnerving feeling when we’re out and about. I don’t enjoy that feeling at all. I’m assuming that this will go away, but for now, I hate it!

• The questions ………. And what do I say? Um, yeah, it’ll be removed shortly, so I’m getting used to the patch? Um, chronic eye problems – that’s the easiest. Most people just smile and nod at that comment.

On the good side of things – I have a surgery date! October 3 – the eye will be removed. I’ll be down in Vancouver that week and hopefully, I’ll be home that weekend with no eye. I’m not 100% sure of all that happens after the eye is out. I’ll do some more research on that so I’m a bit more prepared for the AFTER stuff. Getting the eye out itself isn’t an issue – it’s just another surgery for me. It’s the “after” that has me wondering.

(BTW – The eye is coming out because of all the pain it’s causing me right now. This pain was not always present – actually, I only ever had it quite this bad after a surgery years ago. So, it’s a new thing. It’s uncontrolled – the only relief I get is if I sit upright – resting. Not lifting, not bending, and not focusing my eyes on too much. No head looking down … nothing. RESTING!! If I don’t follow that, I’m in pain. A LOT of pain. There is nothing else they can “do” to the eye to fix this pain – they (3 eye specialist and 2 optometrists’) have tried everything to keep the pain at bay – nothing has worked. All that is working right now is taking Ketorolac (Toradol) to keep the swelling down, which means keeping the pain tolerable. So, anyone knowing what I’m doing in life right now – will now understand why I might not be smiling a lot, why I might not be too talkative. I haven’t really told anyone how BAD the pain really is, but I guess it’s one way of explaining to people WHY the eye has to be removed. If there was another way I would keep the eye. But, it’s all been tried. So – for the next few months – I’ll remain in pain … I’ll remain putting on a beautiful smile … I’ll remain this way. It’s not a choice right now … )