(Photo Description: A picture of a lion standing on some rocks under a blue sky. With a tree behind him. Made out of colored Ministeck stones.)
Sunday March 20th
I woke up with that all too familiar pricking feeling in my left eye, which the eye gel is supposed to be helping. It’s not the first time I’ve felt it this week. There was also a night earlier in the week when it woke me up and last night, I was awake twice too. It’s hit and miss with the gel. If Jessica or a nurse can get it to go in my eye, it seems to take the edge off of the pain. But mostly they fight with it and it ends up in lumps between my eyelashes. Showering under warm water and using the warm wash cloth as a compress helped the pain to subside. But my eyes only felt irritated again by the lumps of gel, after the nurse tried to administer the morning dose.
After breakfast and tea, the gel was still making my vision blurry. So I turned on an audio book and did a chore that didn’t require me to be able to see. I listened to that audio book pretty much the whole day as my unconfortable, blurry eyes didn’t let me do much else.
They were still uncomfortable and blurry by the time Jessica got home from her walk. After talking with her, I decided I would stop using it as it was having more of a negative impact than a positive effect. I will call the eye doc on Monday.
I used a clean wash cloth as a warm compress to clean the gel out of my eyes and put some normal eye drops in. Prescription drops that I’ve used for several months to treat dry eye. I sat down in front of the TV to look at the photos Jessica had made during her walk but needed some extra help from her to explain what I was seeing , as my vision still wasn’t quite normal.
It started to return to normal around 7pm and I was able to finish editing my blog, which I posted.
Monday March 21st
The day started with a phone call to the eye doc. Since I had stopped using the gel, I wanted to see if there’s anything else I could do for the pain. I had expected to need to make an appointment for a phone consult but the doc called back about an hour after I’d hung up with the receptionist. I was told I needed to continue using the gel and that it would take longer than a few days to fix the pain. She was confused as to why the instructions on the box said twice per day. According to my file, I’m only supposed to use it at night. I was given some… rather unhelpful tips to get the gel into my eye and we hung up. I don’t know how I feel about the conversation. I have the idea that I wasn’t fully understood and heard.
After the phone call, I did my Monday Skype session with Dad. Emptied trash and had lunch.
When your pedicure calls you the day before your planned appointment, you know exactly what she’s gonna say before you even pick up the phone. That’s a cancelled appountment then. She will reschedule as soon as she can.
I decided to spend the afternoon working on a Ministeck puzzle. I’m working on a lion. He is going to go back to the family who gave it to me once I’ve finished him. They gave it along with a huge pile of Ministeck, which I can keep and use. However, one of the boys had already started the lion. So I decided to finish it so he could get it back and hang it in his room. I only have the face left to do.
In the evening, Jessica had an online board meeting with the SP. So I went to bed early and listened to an audio book while playing with my iPad. The 4th book in The Seven Sisters series. I really recommend reading these books if you haven’t already.
Tuesday March 22nd
The day started off normally with nothing special to report. Jessica went grocery shopping and returned with a cart full enough to leave our fridge and stock cupboard happily full for quite a while. Our freezer is maybe less thrilled about being full though. Why does everything come in boxes when freezers weren’t designed to house boxes? Now I have photos of the boxes, complete with preparation instructions. Photos of boxes take up less room than actual boxes. I helped put the boxes and the groceries away and was treated to Jessica’s culinary talent for lunch. I called it the Pizzegg. As it was topped with tomato and chiriso, just like a pizza. But the base was an egg. An omelet actually. A very tasty Pizzegg.
The first part of my afternoon was graced with more boxes. This time they were full of cables and a few more smaller boxes, which contained old phones. If there’s one thing more annoying than boxes, it’s cables. They have a habbit of tying themselves into knots and when you’ve hoarded them in boxes for as long as we have, you also forget what on earth they’re for. So we were very brutal. Fished out a few usb to usb-c and a few lighning to usb cables and threw the rest out.
Jessica wanted to prepare healthy dinner ready for the next two days. Hutspot (carrot, potato and onion, mashed together and seasoned with herbs) and a Chicken Roulade. Unfortunately the fresh carrots were no longer orange, so she ended up only preparing the chicken and freezing it to use in other meals. The yummy smells tormented my nose for at least two hours.
Wednesday March 23rd
Today is the day I get to skip the last pain pill. I’ve been through a whole rollercoaster in the last 6 weeks to go from 3x a day to nothing and now the first day of nothing is here. I am expecting more withdrawal symptoms and I’m aware they could last for two more weeks. We shall see how my body behaves.
I started off the morning with a long conversation with my nurse. I intended to ask one quick question regarding my painful eye and it turned into a whole complex conversation about many things. A good conversation though. I always feel heard and understood after talking to her.
I had two chores on my list which needed to be done. So I did those at a slow pace, using some of the time in between to work on my Ministeck puzzle. The lion now has half a face. I’m getting so close to finishing!
Of course Wednesdays is also Emily’s FaceTime day we wanted to try out the new race tracks in Mario Kart 8. Unfortunately the discomfort in my eye had decided that staring at a screen full of rapidy changing bright colors just wasn’t going to happen. So we ended up having a good deep and meaningful conversation instead. A thought just came to mind as I am writing this though. I wonder if wearing my filter glasses will help while looking at the screen? Note to self: try that next time you want to play videogames.
No huge withdrawal symptoms yet. Just a light headache.
Thursday March 24th
I have decided that my day shouldn’t only consist of chores and rest as it often has been the last few weeks. The things I enjoy doing also has to happen and the tasks can be done between the fun things. The sunny weather is really helping to motivate me to do that at the moment.
After breakfast I went to my desk to finish the lion I had been making with Ministack. I made sure to regularly move from the sitting position to get tea, or potty. So that I didn’t cuse myself pain by sitting too long. At one point a package was delivered, so I went to the door to get that. I finished the lion just in time for lunch. Pheww. That was a huge challenge. Never made a Ministeck puzzle that big before. It was fun.
My nurse and I have still been working on the eye pain drama. The eye doc is determined that I have to use the gel but I had questions. Is it really going to lubricate my eyes if I sleep with my eyes half open? And does it need to go in directly before I sleep. Nurse helped me call the eye doc so we could get answers. Waiting on said answers took up a little bit of my afternoon. Now we have to see how we’re going to apply said gel before I sleep, as I sleep much later than Jessica and we don’t want to wake her.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in a phone call with a friend. I had heaps of fun with that. It was a welcome change from eye drama.
Friday March 25th
Today Jessica chose to work from home. She had switched her half day from Thursday to Friday because we both needed to attend a meeting in the early afternoon. So decided working from home would be easier.
She was behind with the house chores on her list. So I took over one of them so that she had more room and time for other stuff.
The meeting, which I wasn’t looking forward to, went well. It ended up being a constructive, interesting and helpful conversation.
After we were done, we went to the village. Looked around the only electronics store we have, for a device we couldn’t find. Picked up bread from the bakery and ended up at a snack bar. I’ll spare your hunger by not telling you what we ordered. I will tell you that a friend saw us when she was walking by. She came in to say Hi and we ended up getting drinks (non alcoholic, just to clarify) and had a good conversation. I did a normal social activity after 2 years of isolating as much as possible! It felt weird but I really had fun too.
The eye gel drama seems to have been solved. The nurses, Jessica and I agreed that they could come around 10:45pm to put in the gel. But we would both be doing our normal bed time routine. So I would already be in bed while I wait for them and Jessica would be sleeping. So they would need to be as quiet as possible.
The nurse arrived on time and did her best to be quiet. Although opening the front door is obnoxiously loud when the house is sleeping and no one can do anything about that. We did everything else in whisper tone. She put the gel in. Helped me potty… should have done that in reverse order… she left and I slept.
Saturday March 26th
By 3am the gel had worked itself out of my eye and I woke up in pain. I really hope that the eye doc is right in saying that sleeping with my eyes half open won’t effect how the gel works. Right now, I’m doubting it but I have to try for at least a week before I know for sure.
5 hours of broken sleep later it was time for the nurse to give me meds and help me shower. I then ate breakfast and started with chores.
What I intended to do, was limited by muscle pain, so I moved some of them to tomorrow and spent most of the afternoon and evening watching Netflix. Bridgerton is a good series for anyone looking for something new.
If you can tell me how many times I’ve used the word ‘boxes’ in this blog, I’ll give you a shout out in next week’s blog. See you then!
CRS Life 