Bathroom Update

Some progress lately. Mirror is mounted, cabinet mounted to the wall and all of the drawers installed. This weekend the countertop showed up, so I was able to get the sinks installed. Still need to hook everything up, but it's starting to look like a real bathroom again!

A night of being blind

My left eye has had a tough week.

Last Friday, I took 4 stitches above it due to a camping accident.

Less than a week later, on Thursday night, I was working in the woodshop getting some stuff made for the vanity. Some sawdust/shavings blew off the piece of wood I was holding, hit the airflow from the shopvac and blew under my safety glasses into my eye.

After repeated attempts to flush the debris failed, I concluded it was time to head to the ER (again). This was getting old.

When you have an eye injury, you need to cover both eyes in order to avoid more damage. This is because both eyes move together, so the covered eye will still move around if you have one eye uncovered. Covering both minimizes movement, thereby decreasing additional damage.

So, I put on a blindfold at the house and got into Pam's car. I figured that if nothing else, this would be a good way to experience what it's like to be blind. I didn't think there was any really serious damage to my eye, and wanted to salvage what I could from the evening.

The drive to the ER was interesting. I knew the route pretty well, and was able to keep track of where we were very accurately. The cues were very different - how bumpy the road is, have we gone over the railroad tracks, hills, stop lights. Even more interesting was that I did not find it particularly difficult to focus. This was interesting to me since I have noted a diminished ability in this area due to age and/or stress. Perhaps spending more time meditating would be useful?

After Pam parked the car, we walked from the parking lot to where the receptionist was. Pam did a pretty good job of directing me - at least I didn't hit anything. Useful lessons here: tell me what is coming up and how soon (e.g., "straight for 50 feet, then a step"). Pam was telling me only when something came up, so I could not relax and just walk - always had to be ready for something.

I checked in with the receptionist, then Pam led me to the seating area. (The receptionist offered a wheelchair, but I declined.) We walked over to Triage, and got checked in. Lesson here was that since I could not see the person, it was spooky since I did not know anything about them. I just said "and your name is?", and they told me their name. So, since blind people can't see what is happening, I thought it was reassuring to have a verbal flow of information to help me understand what is happening.

In the "eye room", we waited for a little while. I liked that Pam described the room to me, so that I had a better feel for where I was. When I needed to sit down, it was better for me if Pam put my hand on the chair, instead of making me feel around for it and feel silly in the process.

After being "blind" for about an hour, the doctor came in and removed the blindfold. It was a miracle, I could see again! Oh, wait - I was not really blind...

The doctor told me that I had scratched my cornea, and gave me some eyedrops. One of them really dialates the eye, making me look a little freaky on Friday. The side effect of the dialation is that the vision from the left eye is really blurry - that was actually more disturbing, until I realized what was happening.

In a few more days, I should be back to 100%. That, of course, assumes no more accidents!

Spring Camping Trip

I was gone last weekend for the annual spring camping trip. This is the trip where I go camping with two of my nephews and my dad. This is the 4th consecutive year, and has turned into a nice way to stay in touch. Each year brings surprises, as we are forced to improvise in order to have fun.

This year was no different. Friday started off with a surprise. As I was setting up the 6-person tent, one of the poles popped out of its grommet and hit me just above the left eye. I trip to the ER and 4 stitches later, we were back in camping mode.

The most interesting game of the weekend was our adaptation of basketball. The campground we stayed did not have any courts, so we made up our own game. It involved shooting a ball at a childs collapsable chair. The ball had to land on the seat, and the seat could not fall over. We were intially impressed at making 8-10 foot shots, but by the second day we were sinking 25 foot shots with some degree of consistency:


Other hightlights included going for a hike and seeing a snake, enjoying campfires, and making an indian break called Bannick over the campfire:



From the left: Gytis, Aras, Andrius, Romualdas: