Mom's New Eyes

My mom has had TERRIBLE vision almost her entire life. She is a -14, which means that if perfect vision is 20/20, she sees 20/1400. Basically, she sees nothing but a big blur without seeing much of anything when she isn't wearing her contacts or glasses. (Our family optometrist, Dr. Wilson, said that an average prescription for someone who is nearsighted is a -3, so that should give you an idea of how bad my mom's vision has been most of her life.)

Four years ago Mom was at an eye exam when she discovered that cataracts had started growing in her eyes (cataracts are a clouding of the lens). Cataracts are usually relatively slow-growing (my grandma has had cataracts for over 20 years and can still see well enough with them), but my mom's grew rather rapidly. This past July my mom found out that the cataract in her right eye was "ripe," meaning that it was to the point where it was time to operate to remove the cloudy lens and insert an artificial lens. (And when they do one eye, they usually do the other eye, too, although they never do surgery on both eyes at the same time.) This meant Mom was in for two eye surgeries.

When my mom went to see an ophthalmologist and found out all that having these cataract surgeries would entail, she burst into tears! She panicked thinking about how in the world she would be able to make the logistics of everything work, knowing that it would require a lot of help from others. My mom would need to have three doctor's appointments before and/or after each surgery, and would have lifting restrictions after each surgery, too, where she wasn't supposed to bend over or lift more than 20 lbs for one week after the surgery. (This was a big deal since Mom is my main caregiver and does a lot of my care by herself, which includes a lot of lifting. I know I'm not that big, but a lot of the things my mom does in regards to my care involves lifting more than 20 lbs.) Mom also had to stop wearing her contacts after this initial appointment with the ophthalmologist, so that her corneas could revert to their normal shape. That meant no driving, either, since she couldn't see well enough to drive in her glasses.

Mom had her first surgery at the end of August, and the second one at the beginning of October. They both went really well. One of the perks of having cataract surgery is that the doctor can replace the cloudy lens with an artificial lens that is the exact prescription that your vision is. In my mom's case her vision was SO poor that the doctors said it was basically a crap shoot narrowing down the exact prescription, and he just had to make his best guess at what would work best. Mom had been wearing monovision contact lenses for 25 years, where one lens is for close-up vision, and the other is for distance. My mom really liked wearing them, so she decided to have her doctor do artificial monovision lenses.

The worst thing about mom's surgery was having to rely on other people's help, even more than we already do. Mom and I hate asking others for help! (Why is asking for help so hard for so many people?!) Mom and I would much rather be the ones offering  to help someone else, instead of the ones receiving help.) When Mom came home from her initial appointment with the ophthalmologist and she told me about all the extra help we'd be needing, I prayed and asked the Lord to please provide someone to be there to help us every step of the way, and He definitely did. He always has these past 12 years that we've been needing helpers.

My sister Chandra was able to take family leave from her job, and would come over to take Mom grocery shopping each week. She also drove us to a couple of my doctor's appointments, and Chan also stayed with me when Mom had both of her surgeries. She was a great help! My mom's friend, Bethany, offered to drive Mom to all of her doctor's appointments, and my friends Kellie, Lacee or Heather came to stay with me when Mom went to her appointments. Our friend Laura drove us to church each week and helped with some of my personal care, too, when my mom needed to take it easy on lifting.

Mom is loving her new eyes now that she's all healed from the surgeries. She is seeing better than she has in decades! At her one week post-surgery checkup, the eye doctor told her that she is seeing 20/25. That's amazing, considering what her vision was a few months ago. It had really deteriorated this year and had gone from terrible to...worse than terrible! (It was bad with her contacts, and really bad with her glasses, which is all Mom had been able to wear since mid-July.) Mom says that it's SO nice to be able to wake up in the middle of the night and be able to see what time it is. She's loving her new eyes and is so pleased with how everything went. She needs reading glasses to see/read at close distances since her eyes were so poor to begin with, but other than that she is seeing nearly perfectly without glasses or contacts. Modern advancements in technology and medicine make miracles happen!

Mom had to wear these big sunglasses that blocked out a lot of sunlight for a week after each surgery. For some reason Chandra was quite envious of Mom's shades, so when Mom had her second surgery, she got a pair for Chandra (who was thrilled). Here they are modeling their glasses:

I had to try them on, too, and we even made Christian give them a try:

Not only did Mom come home with awesome shades; she also came home with a couple of wicked bruises! (From the IVs.)

Mom decided to give her old glasses to our family optometrist, Dr. Wilson, because she takes frequent mission trips to Haiti to provide exams and eyeglasses to people there who are too poor to afford them. She's always happy to get old glasses from people like my mom who have extremely poor vision, because there are people in Haiti that have vision that poor, and glasses with a prescription like this old pair of Mom's are hard to come by! The picture below isn't very good, but it shows Dr. Wilson (right) with the woman she fitted with my mom's old glasses.

Above are a gargantuan, ugly and out of style pair of Mom's old glasses from the 1980's that she recently found. We sure got a kick out of seeing Mom in these glasses again. Why this style was ever popular, I'll never know!

After Mom's surgery(s), her doctor took a picture with her, and then sent a thank you in the mail. The picture on the right is from Mom's first surgery, and the picture on the left is from the second. Mom didn't know that she would be photographed the first time, but when she went back for the second surgery, I told her to give a big thumbs up to the woman taking the picture. As you can see from the picture, Mom did just that!

My Almost-Meeting with Anderson Cooper

I've written before about how I'm a big fan of Anderson Cooper. I think he is a great journalist, and is always really fair when reporting the news. I thought I'd write about my almost-meeting with him. Several years ago he did a talk show called Anderson. Sadly, it only lasted two seasons. I'm really embarrassed to admit this, but when Anderson had his afternoon talk show, I contacted the show. I suppose you could say that I wrote a fan letter. I know that makes me sound a little pathetic, but I did. I told him a little bit about myself and let him know how much I enjoyed watching the show. 

A few weeks later one of the show's producers called to talk to me. I was shocked. I got on speaker phone and talked to the producer, who interviewed me for probably 45 minutes. (She actually called me three different times, and asked me about all sorts of different things.) Long story short, I was invited to be on the show. I was excited and terrified at the same time. Things obviously didn't work out or I would've already written about the experience. When the opportunity was presented to me, I was supposed to be in New York City to do the show in just over a week's time, which didn't leave Mom and me much time to work out all the logistics.

I had no idea how I would get to NYC. Traveling is not easy when you're as disabled as I am. If we drove, it would've taken about 20 hours to get there, and we would've had to make the drive in two days, stopping overnight in a hotel (which isn't easy since it's hard to maneuver in a room with such cramped quarters). Flying would've been even more difficult, since I would've had to transfer out of my wheelchair to get on the airplane, and then I would've had to transfer again to a regular seat once on the plane. While this might work for some people in wheelchairs, it wouldn't have worked for me. I think it would be really tricky for people to transfer me once on the plane, knowing how small most airplanes are. I also don't think I would've been very comfortable, since the seats on airplanes don't recline back very far, and I can't hold my head up if I'm sitting up too straight. Though the flight would've only been a few hours, it would've been a real pain in the neck for multiple reasons!

I know the trip would've been pretty expensive, too, whether we drove or flew, in addition to paying for a hotel in NYC for a couple of nights, plus a hotel room on the drive to and from New York. I know some talk shows pay for the guests travel and lodging expenses, but the show's producer didn't mention paying for it, and I wasn't going to ask! I try to be careful with my money since I'm not rolling in dough, so I didn't want to spend tons of money just to be a guest on a TV show.

SO, meeting Anderson never worked out. So close, yet still so far. Actually, I'm kind of relieved since the thought of being on TV makes me want to throw up a little! I don't like being the center of attention, and knowing that potentially thousands of eyes would've been on me in all of my inept and broken glory would've almost been too much! Still, I would've liked to meet Anderson to tell him how much I like watching him and why. I would much rather have a one-on-one chat with him at my house, instead of in front of cameras in a big studio, especially since my soft voice doesn't carry and would be drowned out. What would've softened the disappointment of not getting to meet Anderson was if I would've known that he would've read the letter I wrote, and would've known for at least a few minutes that I, a long-time and loyal fan of his, existed. However, I doubt my letter ever made it all the way to Anderson.

Last year when there was all of that unrest in Ferguson, MO, following the shooting of Michael Brown, I was tempted to go track Anderson down, since he was there reporting for CNN, and was a mere 30 minutes from my home. I wouldn't really go roaming the streets of Ferguson in search of Anderson, but it certainly was tempting. :) 

October Visit

My grandparents came to visit last week. My Uncle Rick (who lives in Tucson, AZ) had been traveling on the East Coast doing a college visit with his youngest daughter, and was good enough to fly to Minnesota after he sent his daughter home so that he could do the driving for his parents. Grandpa doesn't drive anymore, and Grandma could drive, but it's just nice to have another driver along, especially one that's younger. 

When my sister Chandra found out that the folks were coming for a visit, she asked my mom if she and her baby could come stay at the house for a few days. We both love having Chandra around, so we were both delighted. Chan packed up her stuff and all of her baby's gear and came over. Grandma, Grandpa and Rick were all happy to see her, and were especially thrilled to meet Christian. He's pretty cute, so I can see why. :) (Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of Rick with Chandra or her baby. I just noticed that.)

Our visit was short, but fun. My mom and Grandma did the crossword puzzle in the newspaper every day, of course, since they been doing that as long as I can remember. I think my mom, uncle and grandparents are all extremely smart, so I was amazed at what they know. I sat in my room working on my computer and listened to all of them working on the puzzle. I piped up with a few answers. The three questions I knew were Amy Winehouse's 2008 song ("Rehab"), singer of the 90's hits "I Do" and "Stay" (Lisa Loeb) and something about the makeup brand Sephora. I told them to leave the superficial and trivial knowledge to me! ;)

We also went out to lunch to Ruby Tuesday. I decided to just get the cheese fries appetizer. It was a plate of fries with spicy queso cheese sauce on top, topped with shredded cheese and bacon on top of that. It was good, but I probably wouldn't order it again. Or if I did, I would want my fries on a separate plate, because they got too soggy under all that queso cheese sauce. It was still good, though, and fun to try. I only ate half (or less), so everyone got to try them.

After lunch we went to the cemetery where my dad is buried. Rick had never been there, so we stopped by on the way home since it's only five minutes from my house. I love the cemetery where my dad is buried because it is so beautiful and peaceful. The weather was gorgeous that day, so we took some pictures. We tried to find some shade since it was so sunny and we didn't want to be all squinty-eyed.

Here are some other pics from the visit from my grandma:

Grandpa and his newest great grandson

We also watched the Democratic debate on CNN together, as well as a couple of the Cardinals' playoff games. Unfortunately, we lost to the Cubs, but I suppose I'll still cheer for the Cubs, should they make it to the World Series. It's been since 1908 since they won a World Series championship, after all, so I think they're due for a win! I'm not as much of a Cubs hater as most people in St. Louis are, even though there is a big rivalry between the Cardinals and the Cubs.

I'm grateful for another fun visit with family. I think it's important to take advantage of opportunities like this, since none of us will be around forever...especially my grandparents, who are in the "sunset" of their lives. With any luck there will be more fun times in the spring; hopefully with my other uncle, Steve, and his wife, Jackie.

Christian: One Month Old

I wanted to make a quick post about sweet Christian. He is now one month old, as of yesterday. The time has gone quickly! He is adorable and doesn't cry much, except when he's hungry, needs a diaper change or when he has gas. Other than that, he is very happy and mellow. He's started smiling in the past few days, which is a very sweet site to behold. It's SO nice to have a nephew living close by that I'm able to see so often and watch grow up. I love him!

*Chan crocheted the beautiful baby afghan that Christian is lying on in these pictures. She did a great job!

Mom's birthday

My mom's birthday was last Friday. We didn't do anything super exciting to celebrate, but it was just great to spend another day with my BFF. We ran a lot of errands…I got a flu shot, I went to the dollar store to pick out the Halloween cards to send to my nieces and nephews, I had an appointment at the eye doctor and then afterwards my mom and I went out for an early dinner at Popeyes. For years I've seen their commercials on TV, and I've always wanted to eat there because their food always looks so good on TV! There has never been a Popeyes restaurant close to my house, but one recently opened up about 15 minutes away, so we decided to go.

Chandra was able to meet us there, and she brought Christian with her. The first picture below is what my mom got (chicken, red beans and rice and a biscuit) and below that is what I got (three chicken tenders, Cajun fries and a biscuit). We also tried a variety of the sauces that Popeyes offers. We thought the food was pretty good. I liked the chicken, but next time I would probably just get the mild chicken instead of the spicy, since most of the sauces were spicey enough.

This sweet little guy was so good and just slept the entire time we were there.

I'm so grateful that I have such a great mom. She takes excellent care of me—something I'm extremely grateful for, especially since SO many people in my same situation can't say the same. Our life probably doesn't seem very exciting to most people, but not only do we make the best of it, we actually have a lot of fun together, even while doing the monotonous daily caregiving/care receiving, and not-so-fun things like going to doctor's appointments. We have a great life, mostly because we get to spend our lives with each other. Happy birthday, Mom!