On yet another wet and stormy day I went into Edinburgh this morning for a hospital appointment.
I've been increasingly concerned about my eyes for a while, and today I got some definite news. Not particularly uplifting, but something I needed to know.
It was confirmed that I have glaucoma, which has been suspected for some months. No need for an immediate life-change, but I shall regard it as a line in the sand. The damage (just to my left eye, thus far) is not hugely extensive, but it has appeared quite quickly, and is, of course, irreversible. I hadn't really noticed much difference in my vision, so must be grateful to have got off relatively lightly.
I started a regime of eye drops today, which may sound a bit tactical, but should help to slow down the worsening of the condition. I began reading the list of side-effects of the drops, but stopped rather quickly. I shall read that more thoroughly in a day or two, once I am feeling more bullish about the whole business!
I can carry on driving and doing what I do, and am determined to make a sensibly-paced return to the soldier-painting queue once I am used to the medication. My priorities may change a bit.
Please don't anybody send sympathetic messages of support, or best wishes - I appreciate the sentiment, but to me that always confirms that I need them!
Take care of yourselves, everyone. We fight on.
Does this turn of fate put a damper upon your gaming?
ReplyDeleteHi Jon - the news put a bit of a damper on things in general, but there is no immediate prospect of having to change anything, or stop doing things. What happens in the future is up for grabs, obviously, but I'm not retiring just yet!
DeleteDon’t you bloody dare retire from gaming you old fart. Walk it off -as my games teacher once said (when I broke my ankle during a rugby match).
ReplyDeleteHope that message was suitably unsupportive.
That's the spirit. I plan to keep my eyes closed a lot, so I don't wear them out quickly.
DeleteA thing I have been tested for before, my grandfather had glaucoma, hope things get back to a bit of normality once the eye drop regime settles down.
ReplyDeleteThank you Donnie - come to think of it, normality might be a new experience, but in my brave new persona I am prepared to give anything a try.
DeleteIts quite difficult to not write anything unsupportive for this post Tony? Let's hops your eyeball starts behaving itself soon!
ReplyDeleteThank you Ray - that's forthright and unpretentious, and very acceptable.
DeleteBy sheer coincidence, yesterday I was reading about the Hussites and their leader Jan Zizka, who started off with one eye and had the other one shot out in an early battle - but as Wikipedia says, "Jan Žižka led Hussite forces against three crusades and never lost a single battle despite being completely blind in his last stages of life. "
ReplyDeleteSo there's a role model ( admittedly he didn't need to drive a car or use a computer ) for you. I hope that is in the right spirit of unsupportiveness..
Some bloke - I can think of some advantages in not being able to see the enemy - someone must have at least pointed his horse in the right direction? I am inspired - thank you. Will you be fighting tonight in Cuba?
DeleteYes, I am in the game tonight. May the best Gringo win..
DeleteWhat I've taken from this is that you've been very pro-active about it, which is very sensible and commendable! I wouldn't have expected anythig else, I might add. Best wishes, Matthew
ReplyDeleteThanks Matthew - I guess I'm kind of stuck with it, but it could be a lot worse!
DeleteI hope everything settles down a bit with your medication Tony.
ReplyDeleteMy uncle had Glaucoma and it never seemed to slow him down with his model railway hobby… or ogling pretty girls if one believed my long suffering aunt…😁
All the best old chap. Aly
Hi Aly - a number of people have sent reassuring tales about relatives or friends who managed well with glaucoma, and I appreciate that. My only previous awareness of the condition dates from years ago, when I had 3 partially-sighted programmers working for me, 2 of whom had glaucoma. These fellows were absolutely marvellous, but they were coping (magnificently) with a very high level of disability; I am more knowledgeable now. Stuff it - I shall take my drops and get on with it!
DeleteTime to double up and go 40mm painted toy soldier style.
ReplyDeleteGood idea - not time yet, though.
DeleteMore evidence (if it were needed!) that growing older is not always exactly fun. But you sound stoical and bloody minded about it, which probably helps. As people constantly tell me, the alternative to growing older is probably even less desirable so we just have to flog on, with bits failing to work or working less well. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteThanks David - after all, why have we been looking after ourselves all these years...? No obvious reason why I should have developed the condition - blood pressure well controlled, no other obvious clues. I guess it's time up for my Warranty!
DeleteWell, it's still wise to live healthily if possible, of course - but, sadly, annoying things like genes can really mess things up. Even in the 21st century, with all the medical advances we've seen, life is still fragile and uncertain, isn't it?
DeleteAgree absolutely. You can be as careful and as aware as you wish, but a meteorite could hit you at any moment. It would be as well to avoid off-colour humour here, but this topic is the seed for a number of sitcom stories in the past. In real life, many years ago, I used to work with a fellow who was a fitness and health fanatic - he almost lived in the herbalist's, he could (and did) bore the legs off donkeys about vitamins and the correct way to take aerobic exercise, at the drop of a hat, and he was openly contemptuous of the lifestyles of his colleagues. Sad to relate, it all ended badly. He was on a management course in Birmingham when he was knocked down in a public park by a corporation bin lorry - he was out before dawn for his daily run, and apparently he was wearing his Walkman (remember the Walkman..?), complete with headphones. His lifestyle lessons obviously hadn't reached that chapter yet.
DeleteSorry, that was a true story, but was a worthless digression. The point is that you are right; you can be as careful as you like, but if a bin lorry has your name on it, it's all to no avail.
No, not worthless at all, as you iillustrate the point well with this tale! It's certainly a sad story (with a fair amount of bathos too, to be hit by a bin lorry, of all things) and, with his contempt for other people, perhaps also a story of hubris. I can imagine there was inevitably some schadenfreude at his fate! Poor devil.
DeleteI promise not to keep this going indefinitely! In fact there was a surprising lack of irreverence over his passing; I think there was more of a general shock, along the lines of, "If it happened to him, what chance have I got?". This, you understand, was a guy who was an officer in the Territorials, was the organising dynamo in his local judo club, had swum the English Channel, was a feared squash competitor and was still playing a good standard of rugby (back in the amateur days) into his late 30s. Maybe he was too weird to live?
DeleteHe does sound like a "force of nature" with an arrogance to match. I can well imagine that his death was a shcok to his colleagues. Weird? Well, certainly unusual...
DeleteOh - and that should be shock, of course! ;-)
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