Gearing Up

Another semi-wasted weekend has passed but at least it gave me a chance to get out a bit, do some shopping, and so on.  COVID lockdown seems to be letting up more and more each day, and whether or not that's a good thing remains to be seen.  I'm not doing too much, mind you, but after doing almost nothing for a year I am at least venturing out a bit more.  Sometimes it's out of a bit of necessity.  For example, my desk chair is essentially falling apart and so I needed to find a replacement.  It sounds easy, I know, but in this day and age good luck.  Items that have always been no-brainers suddenly seem to be impossible to find, at least where they last more than a month.

Also, with COVID restrictions lifting, I'm beginning to think harder about what kind of live music I would like to be playing.  My voice remains pretty unreliable and so I'm really favoring getting 2-3 different instrumental based groups together.  I'm hoping to get something started maybe later this year.

Over the weekend, I decided to venture out briefly towards the coast.  It was great seeing it again, with the waves wildly crashing against the shore due to the wind, while tons of people were out doing their thing at the beach.  It's gorgeous over here and it makes me so incredibly grateful to be able to live in such a beautiful part of the country; I only wish I took advantage of it more.

My eye situation is about the same.  It seems to fluctuate on a daily basis, sometimes leaving me where I have a very hard time focusing out of my right eye while other times it seems fairly normal.  No matter what the situation, though, the floater in that eye can be fairly prevalent, and after looking through it awhile it gets a bit maddening but at least it's hanging in there.  Luckily, my "other" medical problems haven't yet reared their ugly head anywhere near as much as they were earlier in the year.  For me, it helps to try to deal with only one thing at a time but we're rarely given that luxury.

Growing older is definitely hell.  It's at least been my experience that life post 40 years old basically consists of having some sort of weird sudden symptoms, going to a short series of medical appointments (that are pretty much always a verdict of "you seem fine"), and then, provided you're still alive, doing it all over again...and again...and again.  I can only imagine that this is the way life will continue until...well, you know.

Well, that's enough of that for now.  I'm hoping to get back to recording this coming holiday weekend so we'll see how that goes!

Things are Sort of Quiet

I don't have much of an update on anything at the moment since I'm still trying to get into the swing of things again.  My eye "healed", and I use that term loosely since I still continue to have trouble seeing out of that eye.  This is nothing new, mind you, for I've been having issues with it since 2005.  I am incredibly paranoid, though, that the retina will tear again and then this whole process will start all over.  Or, worse yet, what if I lose vision in it altogether?  These are the thoughts running through my mind daily these days.

As previously stated, I had to lie on my side pretty much the entire week after the outpatient surgery.  This sounds easy albeit a bit boring but it came with an unintended side effect:  it completely threw my back out.  I've had back issues much longer than I've had eye issues and this ended up being one of the harshest back pulls I've had in many years.  I'm still trying to get it back (hah, hah)...but seriously, my back has yet to completely calm down and return to what I think of as my normal weak back-ness/pain so there's a lot of sudden yelping going on as I move around the house.

Lying on your side for a week is actually a bit of a trick as well.  It wouldn't be so bad if you could lay down in a normal position but instead it's all about your head placement.  I needed my head to be positioned almost completely on it's side and trying to do anything in this position is quite a task.  Even watching TV is bizarre in this position.  Typing was almost completely out of the question and so lying there and doing nothing was pretty much the solution.  For once, it's fortunate that time passes quickly at my age and so it went by rather quickly.

That's about all I've got at the moment.  I'll try and write some more maybe in the next few days.

Torn

Well, everything's come to a grinding halt, at least for the moment.  I had plans to be productive this past weekend but alas I was not.  I'm trying to wrap everything up with the Jazz Machine album by July and the clock is starting to tick rather loudly.

So, why was I 'lazy'?  Well, I apparently tore my retina in my right eye :(  I've had issues in this eye since around 2005, and being a computer worker by day I tend to get a decent amount of eye pain and strain at various times of the years.  I've suffered from floaters in that eye pretty much my entire life but they got much worse in 2005, shortly after a minor car accident where I was rear ended, enough so that it totaled my car.  I'm now thinking that may have affected my eye issues more than I ever thought.

About 2 weeks ago, I was simply walking to the mail box when I thought I saw a bolt of lighting across the sky.  I found it strange because a) it was sunny out and b) we don't get a lot of lighting out here in general.  Then it happened again, and again, and then I realized that it was a large floater in my eye that appeared to be slightly lit up.  Then, my vision got pretty cloudy, more floaters came, and my concern grew, enough that I went to the eye doctor the first thing the following morning (which, btw, you shouldn't actually do...you should go to at least Urgent Care and not wait on it).  The eye doctor said he didn't see any retinal tears and that it was probably just aging.  Oh, okay...  And so, I went about my business, all the while with my vision severely worse than it's ever been and having a bit of minor eye pain.

It wasn't until a week later, this past Friday, that I realized that there was a fairly large black spot or hole in my vision in that eye when I looked to the extreme right (the spot was on the extreme left side).  It also felt odd when I'd do that...kind of hard to explain but it sort of felt like the pain of a muscle strain.  After doing a few internet searches, it sounded bad enough that I should immediately get back to the eye doctor.

I went somewhere else this time, which was probably a good decision, and that doctor found the tear after quite a bit of searching, and immediately sent me to the retina specialist, all against the clock since it was 4pm on a Friday and they closed normally at 5pm.  They got me in, looked inside my eye, and before I knew it they were jabbing my eye with a needle to numb it, then freeze it, and then place gas bubbles in there, a therapy that basically causes a bit of weight inside your eye so that the vitreous reattaches to the retina.  The whole procedure took about 10 minutes.  It sounds awful when you say or write it; much to my surprise, I really didn't feel a damn thing and it wasn't that bad at all, and this is all coming from one of the most squeamish people out there.

And so, I've been pretty much laying on my side ever since, literally for over 90 hours now, with only small moments of getting up and moving around.  It's been interesting to say the least.  The retina apparently reattached fairly quickly but it needs many hours in order to "cement" again inside the eye and hence I'll be lying here for approximately a week.  So, no guitar playing, recording, or even day job working...

If all comes out well, meaning I can see normally again, I won't really complain.  This does put my time line for Jazz Machine a bit in jeopardy, though.  I guess, at least for once, I have a truly valid excuse if I don't make it...