After a month off because of the eye incident, I am having a hard time getting used to the sleep mask again.
The problem, I suspect, is that I am no longer confident of its value.
For the past 20 months, sleep therapists, technicians and doctors have told me that:
I would get used to and even enjoy using the mask,
I would sleep better,
I would have more energy,
My restless legs would likely improve,
And more.
I went along with it. When I was using it regularly, I told them that I “guessed” I had a little more energy and my legs were better.
But in the month without, nothing got worse. Nothing changed except I was able to fall asleep better without having to deal with getting a mask on.
If I believe the sleep machine’s reports, the sleep system does have value. It tells me about the full and partial apneas it encounters (and I hope prevents) each night, although I think it just dislikes my breathing. When I wear the mask while awake, it reports apneas.
I will keep trying.
I can envision one day being able to wear the mask regularly. I do not believe I will get used to or enjoy this intrusive mask.
I like cicadas, with their beady redoes and spindly legs. They are just so kooky-looking — they’re awesome. And anyone who sleeps 17 years deserves respect.
Even though my wheels are coated in cicada guts on my return from a walk.
Even though a certain dog seems quite interested in eating them, though she hasn’t. Yet.
But I can’t hear with their buzz. Hardly at all. They are trying to make me hate them.
Throughout the pandemic, I have tried my best not to go to the ER. But as Yoda tells us, there is no try.
Not to contradict a Jedi master, but for me “do or do not” leaves out the most important aspect: luck. And on the last Monday in April, my luck slept in.
I woke up, dressed, and transferred fine. But my shorts kind of bunched up on the cushion, and I started to slide off my chair.
I was holding on to my pole, but that wasn’t enough.
I went down. Hard.
The left lens of my glasses smacked the corner of what I have always considered my pirate chest, and the lens smashed my eye. Beyond pain, I felt liquid, so I knew I was bleeding.
I called my sister on my watch — such a good thing to have. She came, and as she always does, asks right away, “Are you hurt?”
Unlike most other times, I simply said, “Yes.”
She called my brother-in-law for help, and they got me in bed and quickly determined I needed to go to the ER.
My sister went to Mom and Dad’s for the van and my manual chair. Mom came over to see me. Then it was off to the ER.
My brother-in-law drove but wound up leaving because only one person was allowed to stay with me.
It didn’t look too bad at this point, but they did a CT scan to see if the orbital floor was broken because that bone is like cardboard, the doctor said.
I did, in fact, fracture that cardboard.
They told me not to blow my nose, or use my nasal spray and sleep machine, something to do with not putting pressure on bones up there.
The main thing to be concerned about now was entrapment. I believe that mean that part of the eye muscle is trapped by the fracture and the eye can’t get back to where it belongs.
The ophthalmologist I saw in the hospital didn’t think this was the case. Neither did the ophthal-plastic surgeon I saw a week later. I didn’t have much pain, which has decreased to zero, or any nausea when moving my eye. I do have double vision. And the surgeon wanted to see the CT scan before saying for sure no entrapment.
For better or worse, this surgeon, really his firm, is on my enemies list now. Here’s why:
I didn’t realize until my sister later told me, but I was supposed to see the doctor in the firm’s title. That’s who was on my appointment card. I saw a newbie instead.
My sister called the day of the accident, a week before the appointment, and asked the office to get the CT scan. They didn’t say, “No,” so we didn’t bring it. But they never got it.
Newbie only worked Mondays and indicated that he’d look at it if we got it to him that day. We did. He didn’t.
We were now two weeks after the accident. We have to call and find out there apparently was entrapment and I needed surgery.
We also learned that newbie did not yet have privileges at any local hospital, so namesake doc will have to do it. But they had to check with her first. They’ll call back, they said.
They didn’t. When we reached them, they said the doctor had been in surgery all day. They promised to call by 9:30 the next morning.
Again, they didn’t.
By the time they did, we had decided to go to a doctor recommended by the ophthalmologist husband of one of my sister’s friends.
It was like night and day.
He said no to surgery, when we saw him in a week and explained why: These things normally heal themselves and wouldn’t be comfortable operating given that.
He showed us the scan, which showed a massive break, I thought.
And he said my double vision did not sound like true double vision.
He also said I could blow my nose, and use my nasal spray and sleep machine. My nose bones are fine, he said.
Even if it is fake, I do still have double vision, which makes typing a challenge. Hence the radio silence.
So that is where I am. Struggling a bit but surviving. As always.
