Friday, April 05, 2013

In one so young

I saw the eye doctor yesterday.  It was a good visit, one where we talked seriously about surgery for my cataracts.  I liked her--she was direct, efficient, asked good questions.  I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her on the street though, as I didn't have my contacts in when she walked into the room, but her voice was lovely.

She asked about my blood pressure meds.  Why does somebody who is 37 need blood pressure meds?

She asked about my kidneys.  How well are they functioning?

We talked about my vision, how I sometimes have a hard time with simple things like reading music on the piano, and how I can't really watch TV because the couch is too far from the screen and I can't see it, and how every time my husband sees me read, he comments that I need new eyeballs because even with my contacts in, I'm reading with my book ridiculously close.

She kept commenting along the lines of "Wow, in someone so young...."

I texted my sister while in the waiting room, commenting how I was, by far, the youngest person in the room.  Probably by about 30 years.  My sister is a diabetic and I asked her if she feels the same way in her doctor's office.

She texted back:

"We have old people diseases."

We totally do.

Is that agist?

Maybe.

Still, I do feel like most 37 year olds don't worry much about their blood pressure OR cataract surgery.  Seems like that's something you'd expect to face in your 70s.  Or 80s.  Or 90s, because if 40 is the new 20, then 70 is the new 50, and really, these days you have be 90 before anybody even thinks you need Medicare.

Anyways, the outcome of the appointment is that she's going to put me in some new contacts, see how it goes, and follow up in 6 months.  I can live with that.

She did tell me, though, that with my issues, once we go the surgical route, it would change my life.  And she said "Change your life!" as if she was saying "BLOW YOUR FREAKIN' MIND!"

Surgery is risky and costly and all that, and I'm not keen on spending my life needing reading glasses, or, most likely, losing my reading glasses (I already spend my life losing my keys and sunglasses and wallet and most everything else.  Even lost my kids a coupla times.).

But still, I'd like to be able to see.  Maybe reading glasses is a small price to pay.

(Well, actually, reading glasses is just a small fraction of the *actual* price I would be paying to fix my eyes--- you know, the thousands of dollars that eye surgery requires that is most likely not covered by insurance, but you get my drift.)




4 comments:

Rob Monroe said...

I was diagnosed with a "childhood" disease at 21 (my version of kidney disease is FSGS). Yet I immediately became the youngest one in the room at doctors offices.

"Lucky" for me I also had a breast-cancer scare, including mammogram, a couple of years back.

CailinMarie said...

H. My eyes wigged out on me after my first pregnancy. I lost vision completely for 2 weeks. No one knows why. It came back. No one knows why. It was 20/400 before I lost vision. It was about the same when it came back but I was suddenly incredibly sensitive to light and I have scars now that are like blind spots in my eyes.
It took me 11 years to work up the nerve for surgery but facing over 40, and feeling that I was slowly loosing my reading vision anyway, I decided to give it a go.
I do not generally advocate "elective surgery" but you know, they don't have to put you under or anything. I do wish they'd given me valium about 45 minutes sooner because it seems I don't react as fast as I'd like and I completely panicked during surgery (which they will say is only 30 seconds long. Yay me - two 30 second panic attacks. better than full day episodes no doubt.)

*I LOVE* my new eyes. They are dry, and I need drops, and the blind spots are more obvious and more annoying but it is so nice to be able to see! Especially at 2 AM in when some one wakes up and I don't know where my glasses are... or when Tim wants to watch T.V. but I'm tired and I need my contacts out already... I can't wait to go swimming this summer and not need contacts or glasses!

Did I just totally break the circle rule?
Ummm... would you like a pot roast?

Unknown said...

I was diagnosed at 18 with pkd. Now I am almost 29 and I've never been in this much pain outside of child birth. Unfortunately they say there is nothing that can be done at this point. Does anyone have any kind of advice?

Unknown said...

Im really getting scared now. I've been in much pain lately and it just keeps getting worse. Please if someone had any advice please help me. Thank you very much. It's just getting to out of control. I'the pkdm always sick because of the pkd.