Excuses, excuses

Update - Working on Chapter 27.

I should be in the thirties by now, but I'm having some visual problems. For a while now I've been having headaches, blurred vision and a kind of dizzy feeling. This first happened a couple of years ago and I got my eyes checked and got some reading glasses. However, they were really mild. Even the optometrist hinted that I probably didn't need them. But I had my headaches (no dizziness back then) so I got them and my headaches disappeared for a while.

Did I mention they were really mild? After a while I stopped using them. Well, they were never around. When I was upstairs they were downstairs, when I was downstairs they were upstairs, and I rarely took them out of the house.

After a while the headaches returned, this time with the dizziness and blurred vision. Nothing drastic. Just signs I used to read easily I found myself squinting at.

This time I went to the doctor, because thanks to our increasingly cheap provincial government, a trip to the optometrist is no longer covered under OHIP (provincial medicare) unless the doctor recommends it. And even then it has to be something really important. Evidently headaches and blurred vision might not have been enough. Thank God I'm dizzy!

Wait a minute. That didn't sound right.

Anyway, the doctor gave me the optician perscription and set up a CAT scan to make doubly sure.

Yikes!

So, I go to the optician and she tests me and says I have mild astigmatism. Again there was that hint that I might not really need these glasses. But I have these headaches--and a CAT scan of the noggin will send a ripple of fear through anyone. I want these glasses to work.

Later I went to the glasses store to search for frames. The girl there looks at my perscription and practically mocks me for having such a mild vision defficiency. "So you just want the reading glasses--or bifocals?"

Well damn, maybe I don't need glasses. Then I see a sign at the far end of the store. I can read it but the letters are blurred and I can feel the strain on my eyes. Not that it mattered. Kat said, "Bifocals. He has headaches." That was that.

Shortly thereafter we looked for frames and rediscovered the fact that my head does not suit glasses. Also Kat and I have wildly different tastes in eyeware fashion. Ultimately we settled on a pair.

I am presently waiting for the glasses. They should be ready by the end of the week.

So that's where I am. Everytime I sit before the monitor my head swims and after time I will get a headache. By the way, when I mean headache, I mean the kind only three Tylonels and an hour with a towel over my head will cure. It is hard to do anything when that happens.

But Mike, you say, you're writing this crap in your blog.

True. But then I've given the old peepers a few days rest, and besides, this is Sunday. I might write on a Sunday and I might not, but it's not a 'work' day.

I hope the glasses do the trick. In the meantime I'm keeping the CAT scan apointment for the beginning of June.

Just to make sure.


Mike