I thought I’d give an update on what’s been happening to me over the past year. I’ve not posted on social media what I’ve been going though but I have confided to customers that came through the door and because many have asked me to let them know of my progress and wished me well, I thought I’d reach out to all. I want to thank everyone who have given me advice, much needed hugs and assured me that cataract surgery was a walk in the park when I was clearly freaking at the prospect. Anyone who knows me knows that I harbour an eye phobia and at first, I was terrified. Cataracts have been on my top six, worst nightmares list, but as time dragged on and I lost more ability to see, I didn’t care if I had to walk barefoot over hot coals to get them removed. I desperately wanted/needed the surgery and was prepared to pull up the big girl panties and get on with it.
I’ve been struggling with my eyesight since May of 2023, with the onset of fast-growing cataracts. Within a two-week period, I went from seeing normally to not being able to identify the birds from squirrels at our feeder. When I say fast, I mean each new week I would have killed to have what I had the week before, each day bringing forth a greater despair as it systematically stripped me of my independence and any purpose and self worth that I’ve been lucky to embrace for most of my life.
At first, I coped with minor inconveniences, but things really started going downhill over the past eight months. October 2023, I was still driving periodically and almost caused a head on collision with a car that didn’t have daytime running lights and was the same grey colour as the pavement. It scared the crap out of me and I turned the keys over to hubby who became this ‘Miss Daisy’s’ permanent chauffer. I’ve aways been fiercely independent so this was a tough pill to swallow but it was what it was and without any medical intervention I had to adjust and accept my new reality.
Rug hooking was the first fatality of my creative side. I couldn’t see the holes in the backing or the lines to follow. I could no longer determine the difference between darker colours, they were all black to me and the light colours seemed to bind me. Then any design work was impossible when I couldn’t discern the pencil lines on the paper. I’m not that proficient an artist that I could confidently draw with a thick, black marker and be happy with the result. Generally, when I design, the floor is covered in eraser dust as I tweak and re-tweak until the lines make final sense.
I was rendered useless as my eyes failed me. Basically, it was like looking through waxed paper or fine steel wool. My world was grey and blurry, stealing details and robbing colour from my life. Luckily this was an affliction that could be rectified but I found out quickly there was no immediate help and no hope for surgery any time soon. Our medical system is too over burdened and broken for any kind of timely attention. Although I felt my case was more serious than someone with cataracts forming over decades, there was no provision for me. They either didn’t believe how serious it was or they were tired of people and their complaints. The fact that I ran a business and had employees meant nothing. I was in a line and had to wait my turn. Most have cataracts that grow over time, sometimes so slowly the person doesn’t realize that their world is slowly going unclear, but like I said I could see a difference almost on a daily basis. I struggled at work and when using the computer became impossible, I really reached rock bottom. I wasn’t able to read or write emails. The words dissolved into the background. Hubby fiddled to change the screen brightness and make fonts bigger and letters bolder but it was only a matter of weeks when that was no longer helpful.
When I was a kid, I used to hear the saying ‘useless as tits on a bull’. A bit vulgar, but that line kept rolling through my mind. It described me perfectly. I felt useless, and as time stretched into almost a year, I was useless. Life as I knew it was gone. Waiting for an appointment was grueling until I was so sickened by the powers that be and their lack of concern for me, I fell into a deep depression. I am the type of person that doesn’t like the unknown. All I needed was an appointment, no matter when it was, even a year from now. I would have something to hang on too, a goal, a light at the end of this darkening tunnel. But, that’s not how it works. You wait and wait and wait, did I say wait? And then when there was a cancelation, they phoned me with a time for a consultation with a surgeon. It brought hope and excitement until I went back home and more months dragged by while I waited for the call for the actual surgery. I explained to them how deteriorated my sight was, how I still needed to work, run a company with employees that depend on me. My words were wasted. Someone I know well, told me they had theirs done with only a month wait and said his cataracts were so mild he hardly knew he had them. Customers also told me of their short wait times. In my frazzled brain I started to think the doctor didn’t like me, maybe didn’t like the way I look, a personality thing? I only called a few times to see where I was on the list and I would be told that they are juggling 300 patients. Despite my concerns, I felt empathy for the assistant who had to juggle and schedule the surgeries, it was not a job I’d relish. It’s not a system for someone like me who needs timeframes, a mark on a calendar with an ending in sight, pardon the pun.
Not knowing hurt even worse than all the seeing struggles I was going through. I am a diabetic that can only control blood sugars through exercise and diet but the need to comfort eat to stave off the depression led me astray many times so then I threw that guilt and anguish on the heap of stress and self loathing that was now my life. I also could no longer read, the only way I can fall asleep at night, so insomnia plagued me racking up a major sleep deprivation that messed with me mentally.
If the truth be told, morbid thoughts passed in and out of my brain like a cowboy through singing saloon doors. Not so much that I would take my own life, I couldn’t see well enough to act on that, but I thought at 65, I’d lived a good life and was ready to move on. There was no sense to my life. I questioned what my purpose was. In my depression and self centredness, I had little thought for anyone else. My heart pup, Henri passed away May 1, 2023 and I was struggling with overwhelming grief for him and struggling with the enormity of that and my eye’s predicament, it was a lethal cocktail.
My eyes failing was a great lesson for the future. I know now that I would never be able to exist without a purpose. I’m not built that way. I’m not one to sit and wear out a chair. Hard work is my jam. I have to be busy. Functioning. Creative. Going to the bathroom will never be the highlight of my day.
At the end I couldn’t even walk outside without hubby holding my hand and giving me a blow-by-blow account of the condition of the sidewalk, the driveway or any dip in a path where I could stumble and fall. I lost all depth perception when I couldn’t see what was beneath my feet. The range of my vision was a bit less than two feet and that was questionable. Anything beyond that was a confused blur so any elevation or dip I was literally stumbling. I felt like a child and looked like a feeble old woman creeping along.
I could no longer cut or peel veggies. I had little slices all over my hands because I couldn’t decern my flesh from the wooden cutting board and the knife didn’t care. Apparently, my dishwashing skills failed miserably and hubby said that perhaps he should take over my half of the duty after scraping off dried on food from dishes in the drain tray. Hmmm maybe there were perks after all……?
Watching Netflix was frustrating as my chair was moved closer and closer to the TV and I still could not see much more than shadows. I would holler at hubby, “What’s happening? What do you see?” The only positive slant was that I couldn’t see how much dirt was in my house. I logically knew it had to be nasty and dealt with it by not inviting anyone in.
I was a pity pot, a deep and cavernous pity pot. All of my self worth abandoned me. I had been a person who did many things and well and I grieved the loss of me. I wear many hats in my life and my hard-working hands created beauty for myself and others. Now I couldn’t help customers with colour planning, and much worse, sometimes I didn’t recognize them until I heard their voice or got within two feet to make out facial features. When customers came in, I couldn’t remember them from visit to visit. One woman who had come in and actually knitted a hat to display in the studio, I stupidly asked if she was a knitter on a subsequent visit. I realized my mistake once I got close enough to talk to her, I mean what must she have thought? I wasn’t fit to be in the studio, faking my way at being okay and trying to run a business. I had many foot stomping meltdowns and there were rivers of tears.
I bought magnifying glasses with lights for every room in the house, car and studio, ringing in sales and trying to view emails and placing orders for products, menus when eating out, etc. In the last two months they didn’t work so I became totally reliant on my wonderful husband. He became my eyes. For better or worse eh?
The funny thing is, since my first eye surgery so I can now see infinite distant details with the clarity of a sharp shooter, I realize now that I saw even less vision than I thought I did. My right eye was much cloudier than my left eye which I depended on more, I even thought deludedly, if I minded the surgery at all I wouldn’t bother getting the left eye done as it wasn’t that bad. Wasn’t that bad? I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad. Comparing it now to my sighted eye, it’s a very sad joke. I can’t see diddly squat. My left eye is beyond useless, a tit on that bull!
Its funny the small things you take for granted. Are my socks the same colour? A matched pair? Many times, they were not. Trimming and painting your toenails, cleaning your fingernails, tweezering that rogue chin hair. I have a lot of testosterone so I’ve been a chin and eyebrow plucker since I was 35 years old where most have to wait until after menopause to groom the old man wires. At first, I had hubby help me, lying on the sofa with a flashlight to highlight the hairs for him, oh joy on that front, but after awhile I managed by blindly feel my way to the offender and use the tweezers to capture them. Of course, that isn’t as easy as it sounds and I would end up with little cuts from the metal tweezers all over my chin that bled as the hairs eluded them. A couple of months ago I was on the way to the shop and pulled down the visor mirror to see if I remembered to put on my sunglasses. Yes, that’s how grey my world was, I couldn’t tell if I was wearing sunglasses when it was about as dark and grey without them! Anyway, the sun was shinning brilliantly that morning and a ray shot through the window and highlighted a grey wire about an inch and a half long, coming off the side of my chin, looking like a zig zag bolt of lightning. It was so long I was able to twist it with my finger and rip the bloody thing out. I’m not an overly vain person but I take pride that I’m neatly arranged so it embarrasses me to think that over the past months, the time it would have taken to grow a wire like that, I was talking to friends, customers, cashiers and anyone I’d come in contact with and that thing was wagging up and down as I spoke. If anyone noticed they didn’t say anything. People are just too darn nice. There is a need to have a pact with good friends to check on each other, offer incentives if need be. Let me put it out there. If anyone sees a rogue hair on my face, and tells me, there’s a 1/4 yard of hand dyed wool in it for you! When I told one customer of the experience, she laughed and told me that she had a friend that crimped a bead on a long chin hair. I have to admire that gal’s bravado.
Driving at night was scary. The oncoming car lights were huge, bleeding into our side of the road so that many times I shrieked that we were going to be hit front on. Most times at night I had to wear sun glasses to dull the oncoming lights or sit with my eyes closed. We avoided night time driving as much as possible so I wouldn’t reflex kick the passenger side floor out, going for a brake.
How many times did food slam into my face or fall on the floor as I couldn’t seem to find my open mouth? I still don’t understand that one but it must have something to do with depth perception? Little Jake learned to shadow me because mommy was always dropping food to be hoovered up. Filling a glass with water, I had to put my finger in it so I would know as it reached the top. Stairs were scary both going up and down. No one really understood how bad it was, and how could they. I looked perfectly normal, I was cracking endless jokes with my usual self-deprecating humour, faking it till I made it.
After a while I stopped trying to do things for myself, the frustration was too great, so then I became lazy and dependent on those around me. All I can say is thank goodness one can still wipe their own bottom when they can’t see, to me that would be the ultimate degradation. I once worked in a nursing home; I know about such things.
The one saving grace was knitting. I learned to knit a lifetime ago for my Brownie badge but hadn’t done anything since. Once we started carrying yarn, I thought I’d give it a whorl and with an Ott-Lite and my hands fairly close to my face, I was able to knit with big needles and bulky wools. Not well, but good enough. I made a lot of mistakes because I couldn’t see where I was sticking the needles to make the stitches, there were lots of holes, accidental added stitches, screaming and swearing but I had friends who fixed the mistakes and kept me on course. Gradually I gained a rhythm and was able to knit with fewer errors but discovering how to felt hats saved me, when I realized that any mistakes would shrink up and hide the flaws. What knitting provided was something creative to do. Something tangible to give me purpose and I was almost manic knitting and felting hats. Knitting saved me and for that I will be truly grateful. I tell people that I will always be a rug hooker, it’s been my first love, but I am having a mad affair with knitting and now that my one eye is fixed, I hope to learn how to make socks and perhaps read and follow an intricate pattern. I may need a second surgery before I go down that avenue but now there’s hope. I do have to laugh. I blamed my eyes for every error, every hole, so now that I can see and if I still make mistakes, I might just be a crappy knitter. In the meantime, I’ll keep making felted hats with the 8mm needles and simple knit stitches and fill the store with demos for the patterns I’ll create. I’ve been asked many times for patterns and I said I was working on them but truthfully, I wasn’t able to see to create them in a document, but in the next while I will. I’ve been asked to run a workshop on hat felting in the fall and I’m looking forward to it.
Because of this journey I’ve been on, I have been pretty much a no show on social media. No longer wishing all the people who are my friends or follow me happy birthday or commenting on their pages. I posted very infrequently, when I did the comments were filled with miss-spelled words. Its difficult to hold a magnifying glass and type. Even using my voice to text, it doesn’t really do that flawlessly so there were always mistakes to rectify. It’s hard to be a perfectionist when you can’t see. It’s all harsh lessons and bitter pills.
Except for 24 font and bold print from the pre-surgery days, I haven’t written for so long I’m enjoying seeing the normal sized words filling the page. I don’t want to stop but I need to whittle this burgeoning novel down to my point.
I’m back! I’m friggin back!!! I can see clearly now the grey is gone!!!!! My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades!!!! Some claim that exclamation points have no place in writing and shouldn’t be used to convey strong emotion or surprise but tough!!!!!!!!!! The creative juices are flowing once again baby! That’s why at 65, I’m still running the studio and loving it. I’ve also expanded the business to encompass knitting and crocheting. We are now Encompassing Designs Rug Hooking Studio & Yarn Emporium. Yay!
Three days post surgery I entered the studio and stood in awe inside the door. My shop was so incredibly, breathtakingly beautiful, like receiving a hug from a rainbow...... It was hard not to cry, the salty tears would not have been good for my eye so I choked them back and let pure joy wash over me. I have so much to be thankful in my life now that I can see clearly.
I have to admit I was surprised at how much I’ve aged in this past year. The mirror doesn’t lie or spare your feelings. I’m wearing every bit of the past year’s stress on my face with crevices so deep I can hide snacks, but I’m ready to laugh, and sing and dance. I told everyone that when you hear on the news of some crazy woman in Mahone Bay dancing up the center of main street naked, you’ll know I’ve had my surgery. Not sure where the naked part came from, the dancing would have sufficed. I imagine anyone seeing this aging broad in the buff would wish they had their own cataracts……..
Cheers peeps! Christine
P.S. The surgery was a piece of cake. Totally painless, physically and mentally. It's cured my eye phobia and I'm happily waiting for surgery #2.
I’ve been struggling with my eyesight since May of 2023, with the onset of fast-growing cataracts. Within a two-week period, I went from seeing normally to not being able to identify the birds from squirrels at our feeder. When I say fast, I mean each new week I would have killed to have what I had the week before, each day bringing forth a greater despair as it systematically stripped me of my independence and any purpose and self worth that I’ve been lucky to embrace for most of my life.
At first, I coped with minor inconveniences, but things really started going downhill over the past eight months. October 2023, I was still driving periodically and almost caused a head on collision with a car that didn’t have daytime running lights and was the same grey colour as the pavement. It scared the crap out of me and I turned the keys over to hubby who became this ‘Miss Daisy’s’ permanent chauffer. I’ve aways been fiercely independent so this was a tough pill to swallow but it was what it was and without any medical intervention I had to adjust and accept my new reality.
Rug hooking was the first fatality of my creative side. I couldn’t see the holes in the backing or the lines to follow. I could no longer determine the difference between darker colours, they were all black to me and the light colours seemed to bind me. Then any design work was impossible when I couldn’t discern the pencil lines on the paper. I’m not that proficient an artist that I could confidently draw with a thick, black marker and be happy with the result. Generally, when I design, the floor is covered in eraser dust as I tweak and re-tweak until the lines make final sense.
I was rendered useless as my eyes failed me. Basically, it was like looking through waxed paper or fine steel wool. My world was grey and blurry, stealing details and robbing colour from my life. Luckily this was an affliction that could be rectified but I found out quickly there was no immediate help and no hope for surgery any time soon. Our medical system is too over burdened and broken for any kind of timely attention. Although I felt my case was more serious than someone with cataracts forming over decades, there was no provision for me. They either didn’t believe how serious it was or they were tired of people and their complaints. The fact that I ran a business and had employees meant nothing. I was in a line and had to wait my turn. Most have cataracts that grow over time, sometimes so slowly the person doesn’t realize that their world is slowly going unclear, but like I said I could see a difference almost on a daily basis. I struggled at work and when using the computer became impossible, I really reached rock bottom. I wasn’t able to read or write emails. The words dissolved into the background. Hubby fiddled to change the screen brightness and make fonts bigger and letters bolder but it was only a matter of weeks when that was no longer helpful.
When I was a kid, I used to hear the saying ‘useless as tits on a bull’. A bit vulgar, but that line kept rolling through my mind. It described me perfectly. I felt useless, and as time stretched into almost a year, I was useless. Life as I knew it was gone. Waiting for an appointment was grueling until I was so sickened by the powers that be and their lack of concern for me, I fell into a deep depression. I am the type of person that doesn’t like the unknown. All I needed was an appointment, no matter when it was, even a year from now. I would have something to hang on too, a goal, a light at the end of this darkening tunnel. But, that’s not how it works. You wait and wait and wait, did I say wait? And then when there was a cancelation, they phoned me with a time for a consultation with a surgeon. It brought hope and excitement until I went back home and more months dragged by while I waited for the call for the actual surgery. I explained to them how deteriorated my sight was, how I still needed to work, run a company with employees that depend on me. My words were wasted. Someone I know well, told me they had theirs done with only a month wait and said his cataracts were so mild he hardly knew he had them. Customers also told me of their short wait times. In my frazzled brain I started to think the doctor didn’t like me, maybe didn’t like the way I look, a personality thing? I only called a few times to see where I was on the list and I would be told that they are juggling 300 patients. Despite my concerns, I felt empathy for the assistant who had to juggle and schedule the surgeries, it was not a job I’d relish. It’s not a system for someone like me who needs timeframes, a mark on a calendar with an ending in sight, pardon the pun.
Not knowing hurt even worse than all the seeing struggles I was going through. I am a diabetic that can only control blood sugars through exercise and diet but the need to comfort eat to stave off the depression led me astray many times so then I threw that guilt and anguish on the heap of stress and self loathing that was now my life. I also could no longer read, the only way I can fall asleep at night, so insomnia plagued me racking up a major sleep deprivation that messed with me mentally.
If the truth be told, morbid thoughts passed in and out of my brain like a cowboy through singing saloon doors. Not so much that I would take my own life, I couldn’t see well enough to act on that, but I thought at 65, I’d lived a good life and was ready to move on. There was no sense to my life. I questioned what my purpose was. In my depression and self centredness, I had little thought for anyone else. My heart pup, Henri passed away May 1, 2023 and I was struggling with overwhelming grief for him and struggling with the enormity of that and my eye’s predicament, it was a lethal cocktail.
My eyes failing was a great lesson for the future. I know now that I would never be able to exist without a purpose. I’m not built that way. I’m not one to sit and wear out a chair. Hard work is my jam. I have to be busy. Functioning. Creative. Going to the bathroom will never be the highlight of my day.
At the end I couldn’t even walk outside without hubby holding my hand and giving me a blow-by-blow account of the condition of the sidewalk, the driveway or any dip in a path where I could stumble and fall. I lost all depth perception when I couldn’t see what was beneath my feet. The range of my vision was a bit less than two feet and that was questionable. Anything beyond that was a confused blur so any elevation or dip I was literally stumbling. I felt like a child and looked like a feeble old woman creeping along.
I could no longer cut or peel veggies. I had little slices all over my hands because I couldn’t decern my flesh from the wooden cutting board and the knife didn’t care. Apparently, my dishwashing skills failed miserably and hubby said that perhaps he should take over my half of the duty after scraping off dried on food from dishes in the drain tray. Hmmm maybe there were perks after all……?
Watching Netflix was frustrating as my chair was moved closer and closer to the TV and I still could not see much more than shadows. I would holler at hubby, “What’s happening? What do you see?” The only positive slant was that I couldn’t see how much dirt was in my house. I logically knew it had to be nasty and dealt with it by not inviting anyone in.
I was a pity pot, a deep and cavernous pity pot. All of my self worth abandoned me. I had been a person who did many things and well and I grieved the loss of me. I wear many hats in my life and my hard-working hands created beauty for myself and others. Now I couldn’t help customers with colour planning, and much worse, sometimes I didn’t recognize them until I heard their voice or got within two feet to make out facial features. When customers came in, I couldn’t remember them from visit to visit. One woman who had come in and actually knitted a hat to display in the studio, I stupidly asked if she was a knitter on a subsequent visit. I realized my mistake once I got close enough to talk to her, I mean what must she have thought? I wasn’t fit to be in the studio, faking my way at being okay and trying to run a business. I had many foot stomping meltdowns and there were rivers of tears.
I bought magnifying glasses with lights for every room in the house, car and studio, ringing in sales and trying to view emails and placing orders for products, menus when eating out, etc. In the last two months they didn’t work so I became totally reliant on my wonderful husband. He became my eyes. For better or worse eh?
The funny thing is, since my first eye surgery so I can now see infinite distant details with the clarity of a sharp shooter, I realize now that I saw even less vision than I thought I did. My right eye was much cloudier than my left eye which I depended on more, I even thought deludedly, if I minded the surgery at all I wouldn’t bother getting the left eye done as it wasn’t that bad. Wasn’t that bad? I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad. Comparing it now to my sighted eye, it’s a very sad joke. I can’t see diddly squat. My left eye is beyond useless, a tit on that bull!
Its funny the small things you take for granted. Are my socks the same colour? A matched pair? Many times, they were not. Trimming and painting your toenails, cleaning your fingernails, tweezering that rogue chin hair. I have a lot of testosterone so I’ve been a chin and eyebrow plucker since I was 35 years old where most have to wait until after menopause to groom the old man wires. At first, I had hubby help me, lying on the sofa with a flashlight to highlight the hairs for him, oh joy on that front, but after awhile I managed by blindly feel my way to the offender and use the tweezers to capture them. Of course, that isn’t as easy as it sounds and I would end up with little cuts from the metal tweezers all over my chin that bled as the hairs eluded them. A couple of months ago I was on the way to the shop and pulled down the visor mirror to see if I remembered to put on my sunglasses. Yes, that’s how grey my world was, I couldn’t tell if I was wearing sunglasses when it was about as dark and grey without them! Anyway, the sun was shinning brilliantly that morning and a ray shot through the window and highlighted a grey wire about an inch and a half long, coming off the side of my chin, looking like a zig zag bolt of lightning. It was so long I was able to twist it with my finger and rip the bloody thing out. I’m not an overly vain person but I take pride that I’m neatly arranged so it embarrasses me to think that over the past months, the time it would have taken to grow a wire like that, I was talking to friends, customers, cashiers and anyone I’d come in contact with and that thing was wagging up and down as I spoke. If anyone noticed they didn’t say anything. People are just too darn nice. There is a need to have a pact with good friends to check on each other, offer incentives if need be. Let me put it out there. If anyone sees a rogue hair on my face, and tells me, there’s a 1/4 yard of hand dyed wool in it for you! When I told one customer of the experience, she laughed and told me that she had a friend that crimped a bead on a long chin hair. I have to admire that gal’s bravado.
Driving at night was scary. The oncoming car lights were huge, bleeding into our side of the road so that many times I shrieked that we were going to be hit front on. Most times at night I had to wear sun glasses to dull the oncoming lights or sit with my eyes closed. We avoided night time driving as much as possible so I wouldn’t reflex kick the passenger side floor out, going for a brake.
How many times did food slam into my face or fall on the floor as I couldn’t seem to find my open mouth? I still don’t understand that one but it must have something to do with depth perception? Little Jake learned to shadow me because mommy was always dropping food to be hoovered up. Filling a glass with water, I had to put my finger in it so I would know as it reached the top. Stairs were scary both going up and down. No one really understood how bad it was, and how could they. I looked perfectly normal, I was cracking endless jokes with my usual self-deprecating humour, faking it till I made it.
After a while I stopped trying to do things for myself, the frustration was too great, so then I became lazy and dependent on those around me. All I can say is thank goodness one can still wipe their own bottom when they can’t see, to me that would be the ultimate degradation. I once worked in a nursing home; I know about such things.
The one saving grace was knitting. I learned to knit a lifetime ago for my Brownie badge but hadn’t done anything since. Once we started carrying yarn, I thought I’d give it a whorl and with an Ott-Lite and my hands fairly close to my face, I was able to knit with big needles and bulky wools. Not well, but good enough. I made a lot of mistakes because I couldn’t see where I was sticking the needles to make the stitches, there were lots of holes, accidental added stitches, screaming and swearing but I had friends who fixed the mistakes and kept me on course. Gradually I gained a rhythm and was able to knit with fewer errors but discovering how to felt hats saved me, when I realized that any mistakes would shrink up and hide the flaws. What knitting provided was something creative to do. Something tangible to give me purpose and I was almost manic knitting and felting hats. Knitting saved me and for that I will be truly grateful. I tell people that I will always be a rug hooker, it’s been my first love, but I am having a mad affair with knitting and now that my one eye is fixed, I hope to learn how to make socks and perhaps read and follow an intricate pattern. I may need a second surgery before I go down that avenue but now there’s hope. I do have to laugh. I blamed my eyes for every error, every hole, so now that I can see and if I still make mistakes, I might just be a crappy knitter. In the meantime, I’ll keep making felted hats with the 8mm needles and simple knit stitches and fill the store with demos for the patterns I’ll create. I’ve been asked many times for patterns and I said I was working on them but truthfully, I wasn’t able to see to create them in a document, but in the next while I will. I’ve been asked to run a workshop on hat felting in the fall and I’m looking forward to it.
Because of this journey I’ve been on, I have been pretty much a no show on social media. No longer wishing all the people who are my friends or follow me happy birthday or commenting on their pages. I posted very infrequently, when I did the comments were filled with miss-spelled words. Its difficult to hold a magnifying glass and type. Even using my voice to text, it doesn’t really do that flawlessly so there were always mistakes to rectify. It’s hard to be a perfectionist when you can’t see. It’s all harsh lessons and bitter pills.
Except for 24 font and bold print from the pre-surgery days, I haven’t written for so long I’m enjoying seeing the normal sized words filling the page. I don’t want to stop but I need to whittle this burgeoning novel down to my point.
I’m back! I’m friggin back!!! I can see clearly now the grey is gone!!!!! My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades!!!! Some claim that exclamation points have no place in writing and shouldn’t be used to convey strong emotion or surprise but tough!!!!!!!!!! The creative juices are flowing once again baby! That’s why at 65, I’m still running the studio and loving it. I’ve also expanded the business to encompass knitting and crocheting. We are now Encompassing Designs Rug Hooking Studio & Yarn Emporium. Yay!
Three days post surgery I entered the studio and stood in awe inside the door. My shop was so incredibly, breathtakingly beautiful, like receiving a hug from a rainbow...... It was hard not to cry, the salty tears would not have been good for my eye so I choked them back and let pure joy wash over me. I have so much to be thankful in my life now that I can see clearly.
I have to admit I was surprised at how much I’ve aged in this past year. The mirror doesn’t lie or spare your feelings. I’m wearing every bit of the past year’s stress on my face with crevices so deep I can hide snacks, but I’m ready to laugh, and sing and dance. I told everyone that when you hear on the news of some crazy woman in Mahone Bay dancing up the center of main street naked, you’ll know I’ve had my surgery. Not sure where the naked part came from, the dancing would have sufficed. I imagine anyone seeing this aging broad in the buff would wish they had their own cataracts……..
Cheers peeps! Christine
P.S. The surgery was a piece of cake. Totally painless, physically and mentally. It's cured my eye phobia and I'm happily waiting for surgery #2.
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