take good care of my husband

Walter had jury duty on Wednesday and Thursday. The courthouse is downtown as is my office so we decided to take the bus together on Wednesday morning. As I’ve mentioned before Walter is legally blind. When we got to the park and ride it was no longer dark, but it wasn’t yet bright daylight either. It was that part of the morning just after sun-up when everything looks gray – including gray light posts!

We were walking from the car to the street where people were waiting to catch a bus. I saw a bus arriving and thought perhaps we could hurry and catch it. Walter was a few yards behind me. If it were dark I would slow down and keep him closer to me to make sure he didn’t need assistance and was following me okay. But because it appeared to be daytime I didn’t slow down enough.

Walter was focused on me, trying to make sure he didn’t lose sight of me. Suddenly I heard a big SMACK sound. I turned around just in time to see that Walter had run straight into a tall metal light pole. He hit with his right orbital bone so he has a bruise above his right brow and quite a shiner just below the eye. He even bled a little – not from a cut but from the force of the impact. He also banged up his left knee a bit.

Fortunately he did not fall or pass out from the force of impact. His face hurt for a while and he’s a bit bruised, but otherwise he is okay.

Needless to say I felt terrible. I wish I had realized he could not see well enough to keep up with me and still see things like lamp posts.

Fortunately Walter has a sense of humor. Yesterday when we passed the same light pole I pointed out to Walter that was the one he ran into the day before. He stopped and said to the pole: “You wanna piece of me, pole??” I laughed and told him “I think it got a piece of you yesterday, Dear!”

My husband is legally blind. He has no vision in the left eye at all so we are doing everything we can to keep what little vision he has left in the right eye.

A couple years ago he had a corneal transplant and lens replacement in the right eye. Totally unrelated to that, he also has glaucoma (high eye pressure). The pressure on his right eye has been slowly creeping up and now he needs surgery to keep from losing the rest of his sight.

The surgery he will have is the most invasive of the three types. It’s called a glaucoma valve implant. They basically implant a small shunt (a tube – but Walter likes to call it a “drain pipe”) to assist the natural drainage system of the eye. That way fluids don’t build up behind the cornea.

This surgery is less risky than the one he had two years ago and has a pretty good success rate. We are optimistic for the results.

The surgery is scheduled on Halloween so we will miss any festivities. I told Walter I should get him a big black eye patch to wear over his surgery eye patch. He can be a pirate!