Blogger.com is getting too weird, so here it is: My first post on the new platform. The old othercat.blogspot.com is constantly hanging and not being very responsive. The interface here is much nicer to work with too, so I’ve decided to follow in Sassinak’s footprints. Her old blog moved here a few months back, and I keep wondering why I didn’t move sooner.  The deed is now done. I’m tired of being patient with blogger.com and their routine hangups.

Anyway, if you’ve followed me here from the old blog, you’ll have heard all about the loss and recovery of my vision in recent weeks. I can only say that the treatment has been largely a success so far. My prescriptions run out tomorrow, and no a moment too soon. The side effects have been quite a nuisance. I can’t say too many bad things about it, because I can see again. Two and a half weeks of being wound a bit tight is getting to me though. The simple things in life like a good nights sleep and a calm gastro-intestinal system will return. How nice.

I’m back to work, and glad to be so. It’s a little hard with the dim eyesight, but I must soldier on, and to tell the truth, I think I’ve got a newfound love of my life and work since my brief but intense introduction to blindness.

At the time, and even now, I felt like I was having some kind of surreal adventure. I certainly felt ill at ease because I couldn’t see, but I never felt frightened. It feels odd to say, but I took a third person view of the situation and was somewhat dispassionate about it. I certainly hoped, even at my darkest times, that my eyesight would improve. Despite that I was also mentally preparing for a radical change in my life in the event that I was rendered blind permanently. A kind of analytical pragmatism kept me in control of the situation.

One of the women in my Continuum class, among many others exclaimed “You must have been freaking out!” but it wasn’t the case. I replied that I couldn’t afford to. Perhaps it’s a sign of my improving mental stability in the last few years, but it’s also true. I suspect that if I lost my composure along with my eyesight, I’d have been a lot worse off.

Chomulungma has weird ways of teaching us lessons, and I guess this was my turn. I have certainly learned that keeping a cool head even in the most trying times is best. It will be up to me to see if the lessons will remain. The progress in my eyesight is slowing up, but still improving. I think the reserves of patience that I had during the worst of it will be still necessary in the coming weeks. None of the doctors nor I know how much better my eyesight will get. I suspect that according to the numbers, my vision will be fine, but I think I’m going to have a long uphill struggle to finally deal with natural and artificial light in all it’s varying intensities.

 It’s one thing to demonstrate seeing a letter on an eyechart at the appropriate distance, and another to cope with a bright sunny day for any duration. Making smooth transitions as conditions change will be my challenge. I think it’s going to be alright, but, at this stage in the game, I think I had better be prepared for a long haul back. It’s going to be a long interesting time.