o/t: my recent adventures

Some may have noticed that things have been a tad quiet around Chateau Noirish recently. The movie posts have been appearing (they’re currently lined up ready to post themselves until the middle of July), but I haven’t been replying to comments, posting book notes, etc.

On the Monday of last week I woke to discover I’d lost almost all of the vision in my right eye. We took the offending eye, with me attached, to an ophthalmologist that afternoon. On Tuesday we saw the retina specialist to whom the ophthalmologist had referred us, and he confirmed my suspicion that the cause was an occlusion of the retinal artery by plaque. He strongly suggested I have an ultrasounding of my carotid arteries done; by the time this had been organized through my doctor/cardiologist, it was Friday.

The ultrasounding tech found enough of interest that he phoned my doc, who on the phone to me told me I should go forthwith to the Emergency Room of the nearest hospital for a CAT scan. When we got there we discovered one of the partners in his practice waiting for us; between them they’d decided I should stay in the hospital after the scan to have an operation done to essentially scour out my right carotid of the accumulated plaque there.

This was enough of a shock to send my blood pressure berserk, so we spent the weekend stabilizing my BP before the CAT scan on Monday and the operation on Tuesday. (It was done under novocaine and valium rather than a general anesthetic, so I may have nightmares in future!)  I got out of the hospital on Wednesday, but unconnected complications with my feet — it’s an affliction I’ve had before but, through circumstances, have never had properly diagnosed or treated — mean that moving around is a bit difficult (though getting easier).

I’ve had to cancel guesting at HELIOsphere this weekend, which is pissing me off something rotten — it’s a great little sf convention, and I’d been very much looking forward to it — although I’ll be popping in there briefly in an hour or so to drop some books off with Sally Kobee. Today or tomorrow we’ll be buying me the long overdue upgrade to my current monitor, which has served me wonderfully for many years and is dearly loved but today looks like something you’d find on a laptop. I’ll be doing a tangle of book notes over the weekend — the one good thing was that I got a fair amount of reading done — and I hope by Monday or Tuesday to be back up and running at full speed doing this writing/editing thing whereby I try to earn my living. (Luckily the client for my major current editorial endeavor is being cooperative about scheduling!)

I’m surprised, to be honest, how little the loss of one eye has affected me. The right eye was my dominant one, so I was nervous about the left’s ability to cope, but it’s stepped up to the task like an absolute  trouper. Moreover, since my eyes have always been weird (one long-sighted, one short-sighted; thanks for giving me that, Mum!), I’m finding it relatively easy to cope with the loss of depth perception — i.e., my depth perception has always been lousy, so this is just a different lousy.

So that’s what I’ve been up to. It’s not been an unalloyed delight, but, ya know . . .

And you?