THE EYES HAVE IT

You know how we're none of us ever supposed to just take things for granted but we always do anyway?

Guilty. 

I have this eye that's vulnerable and I've known it for some time now.  Taking reasonable precautions with it has become automatic:  not risking a bump and shielding it from extremely bright light mainly. 

Being careful not to get my noggin knocked by falling off my roof is common sense in general but I'm also always aware that in addition to getting a headache out of the deal I might lose the vision in this one eye - that helps keep me alert. 

The same goes for getting too close to fireworks, avoiding strobe lights, not looking too closely at the epicenters of sunrises and sunsets, and looking away when some blankety blank doesn't dim their headlights.

The little squiggles (they call them 'floaters' which I personally find an unpleasant term but I'm not the one who named them that) that sometimes roam around in my vision don't bother me all that much.  I know what they are and why they're there and I'm okay with them. 

What I'm NOT okay with is when they increase in number and bug the heck out of me - and more especially when they're joined by a new phenomenon:  twinkles, or sparkles, little stars that belong in a beautiful night sky but NOT in my sightline while I'm at work. 

That happened yesterday afternoon early in my shift for a second or two.  They disappeared but came back, then disappeared again.

Spooked me a little, that did. 

I remembered my optometrist telling me something about lights and that if a big bright one suddenly appeared and didn't go away I was supposed to get myself to an ER immediately. 

This wasn't like that but it WAS unprecedented and freaked me out some. 

So today I went and saw my optometrist.  He fit me into his already packed schedule and deserves many special blessings for doing so. 

Having looked it up on line last night I knew basically that he would tell me one of several things.  I was hoping for word that it was just a natural aging thing and nothing to panic about.  On the other end of the scale was a precursor to a retinal tear and/or detachment, which is considerably more serious.  In between is where my condition seems to fall. 

So it's good news and bad news.  Good in that it could definitely be worse, bad in that it isn't likely to get any better and MIGHT get worse at any time. 

Since there's nothing aside from reasonable precautions that I'm going to DO about it, I'm working myself around to a 'que sera sera' take on it. 

Just KNOWING what's going on helps tremendously, so I'm very glad I made the trip today to find out.  I know what to be on the alert for, and if/when it happens I'm not going to panic about it. 

I'm supposed to get more sleep (possible), eliminate caffeine and nicotine (total elimination is not likely but cutting back might be a possibility), continue precautionary measures (a given), and get rid of all the stressors in my life (yep, uh-huh, right).

Since it's one in the morning I reckon I can get on that sleep thing right away.  The rest can wait until tomorrow.   

As for taking things for granted, I do believe that my days of assuming my binocular vision will never end - have just ended. 

And now I'm going to go rest my eyes.