Where'd you get those peepers?

I was in second grade when I first got glasses. My mom was at parent-teacher conferences and my teacher told her that I was having a hard time seeing the board. I was sitting out in the hall, waiting for my mom, and they called me in. Mrs. Savage, who I loved despite the intimidating name, had written something on the board for me to read. She had me sit at a table in the back of the classroom and asked me to read it. I remember sitting there, squinting, thinking about how that wasn't where I normally sat and that the writing on the board was a big messy blur. Mrs. Savage asked gently if I could tell her any part of what was written. I don't know if I made something up or if I just said no, but it was clear. The time had come.

I was pretty miserable about getting glasses. I thought everyone was going to call me four-eyes (which some people did) and that people would stop being my friends (which they did not). But with glasses, I stopped squinting and stopped getting headaches, and after a while I must have gotten used to them. It wasn't until 11th grade that I started wearing contacts. Without any form of corrective lenses, I am legally blind - I have been since late elementary school. Without glasses or contacts, I would not be able to drive a car, or recognize friends even at a distance of a few feet, or read without holding the book inches from my face. Incidentally, my vision is better than 20/20 those few inches in front of my face.

Well, a week from today I'm going to have eye surgery to fix all that - LASEK wavefront to correct my vision, hopefully to near as perfect as it can get. On the 7th, my right eye will be corrected and my left eye'll have to wait until mid-January to get fixed. I know having terrible vision is nothing life-threatening, and I really could go the rest of my life wearing contacts and/or glasses and be okay with that. Indeed, I may need glasses again eventually anyway or another corrective surgery, but hopefully way later in life. But to just wake up one morning and be able to see? It kind of seems too good to be true. I'm pretty excited about it, with only the slightest bit of apprehension. I mean, my cornea is going to be sliced open and then a laser is going to go in there, right? That's a little scary, and then of course, there's the 1% chance that my vision won't be any better, but hey, let's not think about that. Anyway, eye surgery! Next week!

On a sidenote, I can't believe tomorrow is the first of December. That's kind of crazy to me. Where has the time gone? What have I been doing that I hardly noticed that November was rapidly coming to an end?

The past week and a half or so has been really busy. I've been babysitting a lot more and then was sick for all of last week, first with some weird "mystery" illness (hot/cold spells, fever, exhaustion... but strangely, not the flu? anyone have any ideas what it might be?) and then with a cold. Also, my grandma arrived on Saturday so we were all in a tizzy trying to get the house clean and ready for that. Grandma is sleeping in my room so she doesn't have to go up and down the stairs to the basement all the time - so I'm sleeping in the scary basement bedroom, right next to the furnace that roars on several times a night! It's fun.

We were also busy getting the house "mom-proofed," as I like to call it. My mom had hip replacement surgery yesterday morning (hence the grandma being here to help take care of her). It was a little bit scary even though there wasn't a huge risk factor involved, not like open heart surgery or anything, and my mom is relatively young for a hip replacement patient. But even so, if you know nothing about the procedure, the incision they make at the hip, well... it's like they practically cut your whole leg off. I tried really hard not to think about that happening to my mom when I was sitting in a waiting room in the hospital all day yesterday. Bleck. Anyway, my mom is doing great - she's on morphine, ain't nothing wrong when you're on morphine - and she's going to be in the hospital for a few more days. Then she's coming home!

Also,the job I interviewed for, oh so long ago.. it was a bilingual administrative assistant position with a law firm downtown. And I did not get the job, but I was only a little disappointed. The prospect of having a job was more exciting to me than the job itself, so it was probably for the best. Anywho, my grandma and I are off to visit my mom now!