I spy with my little eye

Today would have been my second eye operation, but my tumble to the pavement ten days ago has pushed the procedure into late January.

Never mind.  Having just one eye done has made a significant difference.

I was just reading my journal entry from six weeks ago.  It sounds euphoric, to say the least:

Oh. My. God. I CAN SEE.

Today was my first post-operative visit to Moka House.  In the pre-dawn light, I peered into the lit windows of the buildings I passed: lamps and shelves and wallpaper.  In the arch of trees, I could see branches, leaves.

Walking by a man at the bus stop, whose figure stood out in clear relief.  He stared into nothingness, listening to whatever was in his white earbuds.  He didn't appear to notice me, but, by golly, I could see him: his side profile, the strands of his blond hair.

I stopped at the bottom of the steps leading into the coffeehouse patio, taking in the individual bulbs in the string of lights.  I entered and could actually see the baked goods, and read the menu on the chalkboard.  For the first time in over a year, I read the posted clip of the day's horoscope by the pick-up station.

There's a beautiful, small, dark painting on the wall opposite me.  I've never noticed it before.  The other paintings are clear and colourful, not impressionistic at all.

And this was long after the Ativan wore off.  On the morning of my operation, I was offered medication, as I sat in a recliner in the waiting room, my eye full of various preparatory drops.  I told the nurse that giving birth twice has taught me to accept any drugs offered before a procedure.

"Fair," he said, cheerfully, giving me the tiny pill to pop under my tongue.  A fair bit later, I was gingerly positioning myself on the narrow operating bed, and the doctor pressed a kind of white gel pack to my eye, through which he opened a hole.

And all I could see was a kaleidoscope of brilliant oozy smears of light, blobs that changed colour from magenta to royal blue to poison green.  It reminded of the "Stargate" bit from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Thank goodness they were playing a classical guitar piece, and not the weird music from that part of the film -- or the rather clubby, thumpy stuff which was on when I came in.

I was told to focus on the farthest left of a cluster of three brilliant orbs, and I held my breath, then forced myself to breathe slowly, trying to relax my hands, under the blanket which firmly swaddled me to the stretcher.

It was a short procedure which seemed to take forever.

I had no trouble rising and walking on my own back to recovery.  Yes, I could see, but nothing dramatic.  At home my operated eye was cloudy, but nowhere near as bad as it has been for the past year.

It was early the next morning en route to the first operative check that I noticed I could read signs out the taxi window.  After the appointment, we elected to take transit, and the Resident Fan Boy commented on an approaching bus, several blocks away.  Without thinking, I told him it was a "Not in Service", then realized the significance of what I'd just said.

On another bus, which was in service, I gazed at the faces around me, the braids of the girl ahead of me, the couple bent over their phones, the details of the design on the ancient seat upholstery.

By evening, the images on the big screen television - purchased because I could barely make out things on the smaller screen of our old TV - were vibrant and clear.

"They always were, " said the Resident Fan Boy.

"Shut up," I told him.

By bedtime, I realized I could read books again.  I could make out what I'd written in my journals.

My mocha is topped with bubbles edged in brown, I noted in my current journal, my first morning back in the coffeeshop.  The croissant is made up of crisp crumbs and flakes.  I can see.

I can wait for my other eye.  When I close my new "good eye", the old "good eye" reminds me of what was.  For now.

The pharmacy quadrille

It had been an unexpectedly stressful afternoon. We've gone to London Drugs, the boxy drugstore in the Harris Green neighbourhood of Victoria, more than once to pick up prescriptions for Demeter, when she has been unable, due to personal health or the weather, to trundle her walker the ten blocks. Normally, it's a reasonably easy process. We simply provide her name, phone number, and address, and they hand the drugs over.

You may have noticed that these are not normal times.

I arrived to find that the drugstore has introduced a carefully spaced line-up area outside. You enter when the required number of customers have left, and while you're in the queue, you can peruse a whiteboard listing what isn't available.

Inside, there were similar marked-out line-ups for the tills. I fell into the odd quadrille so prevalent these days, looping, backing off and retracing steps to keep the sacred six-foot distance between myself and my fellow pilgrims. The line-up for the pharmacy was also carefully spaced with blue disks with white feet outlines on them. Most people carefully stood on the markers, with the exception of a few men, usually on the younger side. One fellow, dressed inexplicably in capris and flip-flops, on an afternoon with a high of eight degrees, stood halfway between the markers, and stared sideways into space.

The holy grail was the pharmacy pick-up desk, staffed by two rather anxious young women, whose task was to take information, then desperately rifle through several racks of hanging baggies, before returning for payment -- or to tell the unfortunate customer why their order wasn't there.

I was both: Demeter had two prescriptions, one of which wasn't there. It took several minutes to establish this, while I gave apologetic glances at those six and twelve feet behind me. I think they said something encouraging, but they were too far away for me to hear.

So I got sent to another line-up for a consultation with a pharmacist, who disappeared in search of a substitute for Demeter's prescription. I spent the time being grateful that I was able to sit, before being sent back to the original line to pay for the second prescription, which contained tiny irregularly-shaped pills, which Demeter will have to cut into quarters.

Trudging back, I decided that, despite my aching limbs, I would take a route past our old house, because the cherry tree is in bloom, and I have pleasant memories of gazing out our bedroom window into clouds of pink.

As I approached, I spotted what looked like a grey vase with a shiny bronze patch on it.

Then I realized it was a cat, lapping up the late afternoon sun, stress-free.

I resolved to do the same.

Look back in anxiety

Awoke this morning to a BBC article in my newsfeed. From the "Future" section, it wonders about how medications affect personality.

Apparently, statins can cause irritability, even rage. Antidepressants can reduce signs of neuroticism (at a possible cost to reasoning). A common drug for Parkinson's Disease - L-Dopa - can affect impulse control; asthma drugs can bring on hyperactivity.

Then, there's paracetomal, commonly known as acetaminophen - that's Tylenol, folks. I take acetaminophen, because ibuprofin does nuthin' for me. Apparently this common pain-killer can reduce empathy.

Now, I am over-simplifying things. I really do suggest reading the article.

However - and this is anecdotal, not scientific, I realize - years of being a home support worker, a hospice volunteer, and a daughter and granddaughter have shown me that what is frequently mistaken for "just" aging, is often the reactions to medications. My grandmother once said, near the end of her long life: "The nice me is gone. All that's left is an old bitch."

I also remember the bewilderment of being so easily hurt and enraged for the brief time that I took Clomid for fertility.

And I have to wonder: was my Double Leo Sister always as hyperactive as she can be? She's asthmatic --- and diabetic. Geez...statins....I think she's been on those.

Then there's me. I don't take acetaminophen constantly, but I've taken it enough. Do I feel less? Care less?

I've been on levothyroxine since before the advent of younger daughter. It isn't mentioned in the article, but are there emotional side-effects? I'm looking back, uneasily, on the person I was before being prescribed. Is it only the years which have shaped what I am now?

I've been "memed"! (7 weird things about me)

I'm a virgin blogger no longer! P., author of What Possessed Me (a blog that takes a minute or so to load, but is well worth the wait), has tagged me for a "meme". I'm a little vague on the rules for these things, but I'm going to answer the meme challenge "Seven Weird Things About Me", then tag other bloggers and pray they don't curse me so I'll have to stay in Hades forever:

1. I can cross one eye. If I really want to flip someone out, I cross one eye, then both, or the other way around.

2. This has been the subject of another post on prosopagnosia, but I don't remember people's faces on a pretty regular basis, yet I ace the tests meant to identify people with face blindness. I'm either a really good guesser in test situations, or am more socially inept (or lazy) than I thought. Possibly both.

3. I've haven't set foot in a McDonald's since --- well, never you mind how long, but it's been a fine stretch of years. I worked there for five hellish months when I was seventeen going on eighteen and vowed I would never return. Ottawa may be Hades, but McDonald's truly is the Den of Despair. I count this as weirdness-in-other-people's-eyes, because they don't believe I mean it until I refuse to go in with them. Wouldn't even take my girls there; the Resident Fan Boy had to do it. Elder daughter now owns a DVD of Super Size Me, and refuses to go as well.

4. I don't own or operate a cell phone, nor do I drive. This is another weirdness-in-others'-eyes item. I don't find my life untenable without either device; the only difficulty is the assumption by others that everyone has a car or mobile: "It's not far; it's only about 15 minutes. Take the Queensway..." "I don't have a car." "Oh."

5. I am incapable of getting stoned more than three times per year. Mind you, the last time I got stoned was when I was 24, so I haven't tested this in a while. I found, in my misspent youth, that I couldn't get stoned for several weeks after a nice session with grass or hash. (Just as well. Couldn't afford it anyway.) This may also be why I never became addicted to cigarettes, despite smoking regularly between the ages of 13 and 20.

6. I'm related by marriage to Len Cariou. Not weird per se, but you have to understand, that he's married to my fifth cousin. Yes, I'm a family historian, and when I try to explain my hobby to most people, their eyes glaze over, even if they're in my family... I think, for sheer dottiness, genealogists rank somewhere between train-spotters and bird-watchers.

7. When I was a little girl, I used to purposely scare myself silly by lying awake at night and imagining how real I was. I don't know how I did this; I can't do it anymore.

There. Now to alienate a couple of fellow-bloggers: I tag Marie, author of the witty and touching novel Gods Behaving Badly (go buy it, it's great!) and the highly engaging blog The Woman Who Talked Too Much, and Jonas the US Poet Laureate Presumptive (who also appears to be channeling Vladimir Nabokov [as in Pale Fire]), author of the new blog Poetry in Motion. I notice he hasn't written in it in over a week. I do hope his poetic duties haven't forced him to give it up...