It is time for my cataract surgery. My right eye is always cloudy now.
For the past several years my eye doctor has told me that I have cataracts forming in my eyes but that surgery wasn't necessary.....yet. Now I think it is time.
It is annoying to look out my right eye and see that permanent cloud. I look at my eye at it looks clear from the outside but that not what I'm seeing from the inside.
Now the question is "What to do with Bill during my surgery."
The surgery itself only takes about two hours in all from the times I check in until I check out. I know this because Bill had cataract surgery several years ago.
Bill always goes with me to my myriad of doctors' appointments. He sits in the car and waits for me. Having him sit in the car for over two hours would be too much for him. Of course I could leave him here at home but I don't trust him. Just this morning he was on his step ladder putting more masking tape over the heating/air conditioning vent in his bedroom. Bill is ALWAYS cold and he is fearing this summer when I have to have the air conditioning run-in our house. I one of those persons who cannot breath in heavily humid air. Some of my friends don't believe me, they say "you can acclimate yourself to the heat and humidity." Of course that would be Pat. But I can't. I literally feel like I'm smothering and on the verge of passing out. I guess a dead Ron would prove to him that I can't take the humid heat. Regular heat I can take (Palm Springs) but this humid heat that is produce here on the Delmarva Peninsula with has the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Chesapeak bay on the otherwise, it's a potential killer for me.
My appointment with my eye doctor is May 9th. I'll work something out with Bill. If worse comes to worse he'll just have to stay home by himself that morning that I have my cataract surgery.
I also put in a call to my gastroenterologist. It's time for my every three years colonoscopy. Same thing, I'll be put "under" for a period of time early in the morning. Again, I'll have to work something out. I guess I can ask my neighbor Bob M. to look in on Bill. He's the widower who lives next door with his late wife's Yorkie, that I have to walk in about an hour because Bob's off fishing today. I hate to ask him to watch Bill but I'm pretty sure he would do it. There is no one else to ask. I can put Bill in the hospice center for a day but he won't hear of it.
Whenever I feel the world closing in on my when I'm in one of these quandaries I say to myself:
"Self, it could be a lot worse. You could be living in Ukraine next to the sub human Putin and his murderous Russians destroying your country while bombing, torturing, raping and killing your innocent civilians. Yes Ron, life could be a LOT WORSE. This is nothing."
Then again we are living in a country where one former president is above the law, not held accountable for a lifetime of crime committed bracingly in public and still roaming free after a failed coup attempt to overthrow the last election.
We are living in a country where one political party (the Republicans) have no shame in perpetuating the Big Lie that Trump won the last election and are doing everything in their power to undermine our democracy right now. These are perilous time we live in my friends. About half our country is brainwashed and the other half is just trying to survive day to day. Then there is Ukraine. Could be a lot worse. Thank God we have neighbors like Canada and Mexico. One country can't wait to get into our country to raise their standard of living and the other country (Canada of course) is a paragon of excellence and good neighborliness. And then you have Ukraine who has the misfortune to have monstrous Russia as their neighbor.