Life-changing. How often do you hear this term? I, for one, certainly overuse it. Possibly weekly, at least monthly. “Oh man, switching to decaf, that was life-changing!” If I take careful stock of my history, how many events actually changed my life? Like changed *all* of my life? Just a handful: marriage, kids, relocating to a new city, that time I got hit by a car.
Let’s focus on the car. Today is my anniversary—twenty-seven years. In 1995, riding my bike to work, I collided with a minivan. The word ‘collided’ I think softens the violence. But the van didn’t hit me, I hit the van. The driver pulled in front of me, I slammed into the side. I don’t remember that ‘Oh, fuck!’ moment when I knew I was about to die. The impact erased more than twenty-four hours of memories. My last memory was watching the movie Cobb the night before. I remember thinking, God this movie sucks.”
My next memory came the day after the crash. Monitors surrounded me flashing visual representations of my heartbeat, respiration and what ever other vital signs are tracked while keeping someone alive.
Yesterday, looking at the calendar I noticed that today is the day. I used to make a big deal about December 8th. I would exchange emails with family and friends. Maybe it’s not my birthday, but it’s still notable as my I-didn’t-die-day. 1995 was a long time ago. I’ve mostly lost interest in commemorating the date. But it’s on my mind right now because I can’t see.
My brain injury wreaked havoc on my life, changed my life. My physical recovery from the accident, primarily my neck and shoulder, took years. These joints will never be perfect, but everything works reasonably well now. Good enough anyway. But my brain seems to be in a never-ending decline. If you google traumatic brain injury, you find all sorts of websites that list the long-term effects that might result. To me, the most relevant are hearing loss, vision problems and difficulty relating to others. Yeah, that’s me, I’ve written about all of these in the past, but right now my pressing issue is my vision.
Since my accident I’ve battled with diplopia—double vision. Right now, instead of one image, I see two—slightly offset, a bit to the side, but not quite horizontal. If it’s a small object, such as speed limit sign in the distance, I clearly see two, one diagonally over the other. But usually what ever I’m focusing on is large enough that the images blend and overlap into one big mess. It can be hard to tell what I’m looking at.
The past twenty-seven years have gone like this: My vision splits. I visit the eye-doctor and he prescribes prisms in my glasses. Prisms bend light, so for me they bend the direction my eyes point. With the prism, my eye can be listing to the side, and I still see what’s directly in front of me. Whenever I get new prisms, I see perfectly again. For a while. Every year or two, I need new lenses with increasingly larger prisms. Once, years ago, a surgeon shortened the muscles in one of my eye sockets to realign my eyes to point where they should. I wore glasses with no added prisms for a few years, but the degradation continued. I needed to add prisms again.
For the past two years, I’ve updated my prescription every six to eight months. I’m maxing out the optical industry’s ability to correct my vision. The generally accepted limit of prism in lenses is fifteen diopters. I’m at fourteen now. This was prescribed only seven months ago, and my vision is now dizzyingly bad.
Nighttime is the worst. There aren’t enough clear visual cues to help me pull the images together. This bout of double vision started a couple of months ago. Driving an unfamiliar stretch of desolate highway at night, I kept slowing down because I couldn’t be sure which way the road was bearing. Eli, sitting in the seat next to me said, “You know the speed limit is sixty-five.” I trotted along at fifty or lower. “Dad, are you okay? I can drive if you want.” Frustrated and embarrassed, I kept driving. Since then, things have steadily gotten worse.
I’ve decided to skip my normal prescription update. I think a new prescription will surpass the prism limit of fifteen diopters. Plus, my insurance that would pay for new glasses doesn’t reset until April. With the prisms, coupled with bifocals, a new set of lenses can run six hundred dollars or more. Instead, I’m seeing a doctor at the Wilmer Eye Institute, a world-class facility that happens to be in my area. I’m hoping that in the ten years since I last visited them, a new intervention has been discovered that might slow the continual slide in my vision. Most likely, it’s time for surgery again.
What better way to take stock of this anniversary than frantically trying to get control over my devolving vision. I’ve called the Wilmer Eye Institute four times in the past two weeks, trying various tactics to move my appointment sooner. My limited success still has it on January 24, almost seven weeks away. Driving at night is now unsafe, reading a book is difficult, and I’ve already increased the zoom on my computer monitor by twenty-five percent. I expect the next two months to be a depressing period that includes unrestrained self-pity. Say a prayer for my wife and kids, they’re the ones who need to live with me.
The Other Stuff 
That is life changing. I’m glad you didn’t die, because it sounds like you’ve had a lot of good things in your life, too, but what a challenge you’ve had with the vision thing. I hope you can find some relief from it.
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I’m glad I didn’t die too. I once wrote a fictionalized version of it where I did die just to see what it was like. 2 months is a pretty long haul. We’ll see how I hold up. Thanks for reading.
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Do capital letters help with the reading? Because I am thinking about FOUR of these bad boys right now.
But seriously Jeff, I too hope the techniques and technology have moved on. And hopefully you’ll be bumped up the list.
Do we get to vote pn that?
👍
Kind regards
DD
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No. I had to read a legal document today that featured an entire page of CAPS. I about went cross-eyed. My fingers are crossed that I get in early. They’re already annoyed with me for calling so many times.
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Wow that accident was really life changing. My autistic son had vision therapy with prism lens many years back. Vision therapy with the lens helped him gain many skills like making baskets and hitting a ball with a bat. He does have many issues. Maybe you can try to add something therapeutic along with these lenses. Good luck to you.
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I’m under the impression that vision therapy is more aimed at younger people who are still developing rather than crusty old men like me, but we’ll see what the Wilmer doctor says. The guy I’ve been going to says ‘not an option.’ It’s cool that vision therapy has been so successful for your son.
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All the best for your treatment.
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I still remember getting the call from Dad, and I was 500 miles away, unable to do anything but hope and pray.
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I’m truly sorry I put everyone through that.
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This vision loss sounds horrible. I feel sad for you, Jeff. I hope the docs are able to give you some relief soon.
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Thanks Mark. I’m sure they will be able to improve things. In the meantime, more TV, less books.
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Can you see okay out of one eye? Maybe you could be Jeff The Pirate and wear a patch? It’s not a solution but it might keep your wife and kids from locking you in the basement😂😂😂 You could try to come up with a great fictional story of how your eye was injured to explain the patch🤷🏼♀️
My Rheumatologist appointment is end of March… great medical system we have 🤪
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Arrr. In a past period of double vision, I tried covering one eye to be able to read. It was pretty uncomfortable and I quickly bailed. It’s probably something you get used to. Might be something to try in the meantime. I’d look totally badass with an eye patch. It’s really a bummer how long we all need to wait to see specialists. As usual, I offer no solutions.
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I laughed out loud at the Arrr. Good one! That stinks about the problems with your vision. I hope when you finally get to see the doctor, you get the help you need. I have to take my dad once a month to get a needle in his eye from macular degeneration. It makes me cringe every time. He says the same thing – the doctor doesn’t talk to him at all. He’s just on a monthly schedule and heaven forbid if he had a question or needed something else. I hope you can get an earlier appointment so you can back on a somewhat normal track.
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I actually got bumped up until next Friday, so I’ll be able to start making progress on this sooner. One topic I want to pursue is whether my TS eye tics could be affecting my vision. Was talking on facebook recently with another TS-er with diplopia. She said her doctor told her it’s unrelated. Wondering if I hear the same thing. BTW- Macular degeneration is one of those things I worry about in my OCD moments.
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Jeff, this sounds so difficult. Imagining this experience makes me feel dizzy. I had never known about the prisms. Praying for you and your family, that you may get some relief. [before I got to the meat of this post, my comment was going to be “Oh no, Jeff! Decaf?!! I am so sorry.” But hopefully you were joking about that part.]
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Oh right, I meant to write a footnote that I was joking about decaf. NEVER going to happen. Thanks for your thoughts. I just got a call with an appointment next Friday. Really happy about that.
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So glad to hear this!
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I remember us talking in other conversations earlier in the year, I think, about your accident. Or, perhaps, I just remembered some of your posts that mentioned your brain injury. I’m so sorry you have to deal with this vision problem. I can only imagine it must be pretty frightening for you to be losing your vision like this. I do hope the doctors at the hospital can treat your condition so that it, at least, slows any deterioration down. I have a niece in her early 20s who was born with minimal sight. She’s now blind but manages amazingly well with her guide dog, braille, etc. She’s at Oxford University studying medicine! Not quite sure how, as I haven’t seen her for many years. I’m not suggesting that you’ll need a guide dog or end up with total vision loss – just to demonstrate what can be achieved with any disability, which I guess serious vision loss is, in a way.
I hope you don’t have to wait as long as the hospital currently says. Keep bugging them, Jeff. Someone I knew used to say, ‘those who shout loudest get heard.’ I’ve been waiting for a dermatology appointment. It’s been a year so far. My rheumatology appointment I had booked for January 11th has just been cancelled until later in the year! We haven’t even got to the new year yet! In the meantime, I will keep all my fingers and toes crossed so you won’t have to wait too long.
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It’s not really scary because it happens so frequently. This time I really want to get some advice. I’m really tired of it. I just got notified last night that I got an appointment on Friday. I won’t have to wait too long. In my town all specialists take a couple of months to see. Fairly annoying.
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Wishing you lots of luck, and hopefully, some good advice on Friday. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you x
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That’s full on, Jeff. Rooting for an earlier appointment. Nothing much more to add really.
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Thanks Bruce. I actually go an email on Friday night moving my appointment to this week. The universe is watching out for me.
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Glad to hear that. Hope it produces something positive and comforting.
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Wow, thank you for sharing. That is truly life changing. I’m praying that things will get better for you. I feel like as people we tend to forget how resilient we are. We go through so much in life we don’t even process it. Also, the anniversary thing is a clever idea. You should absolutely celebrate getting through something like that.
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Nice
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