take good care of my husband

I took Walter to his eye doctor. This is the same doctor who did his corneal transplant surgery in 2005, referred him to another doctor for glaucoma surgery in 2007 and has been following him ever since. At present Walter sees him about once every 4 months.

The good news from Walter is that his sight seems to be pretty stable these days. He can see the big “E” on the eye chart (which was not consistently the case a couple years ago). According to the doctor the cornea looks pretty good and the stitches that are still in there are intact.

Walter says his close-up vision is doing relatively well. But he complains of a persistent fog that clouds his vision. That’s not anything new really. The doctor has no answers for that but could tell from the exam that his cornea and optic nerve are fine.

Walter has been legally blind since birth caused by a condition called Peter’s Anomaly which means his eyes were not fully developed in the womb. He has no sight left in the left eye, so we are trying to preserve the sight he does have in his right eye for as long as possible.

I was happy that we had not lost any ground and that all looks good in there. Walter of course would prefer that his eyesight were improving and the fogginess factor would stop. If only there were a way that I could give him his wish.

This entry could actually go under “take care of myself” as well as “take good care of my husband.” Each fall we have to schedule in time to get our flu shots. I could get mine free at the office, but then Walter would have no incentive to get his on his own. So we go together to our HMO on their flu shot clinic days. They had a day scheduled earlier this month but something came up and we couldn’t make it. I looked at the calendar and figured out we could still go on 12/3. I hate to wait till the last minute on this but it would have worked.

As it turned out, we had a bit of luck last Monday. While in Olympia I found out I had to get antibiotics for my tooth with the dying nerve. So I had my dentist call in the prescription to my HMO there in Olympia. While we were waiting for the prescription we noticed that right in the lobby they were having a flu shot clinic. So we took advantage and got our flu shots on the spot. It was nice to have this little chore crossed off the list so easily.

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!