Glaucoma - It's So Nursing Home

Being diagnosed with glaucoma made me feel pretty old.  I didn't even know what it was. I thought it was something like cateracts and only old people got it.  It's on all the nursing homes' application forms, along with questions about mobility and continence.   I only found out about it when I went for a free eye test because I fancied myself in a pair of reading glasses.  Now I use eye drops three times a day, which can make the skin round the eyes darken (but not in a smouldering, sexy way, as you'll see from the photograph).  I also attend the eye clinic every few months and  was there yesterday, waiting interminably for several hours.

The weirdest thing is that there are no symptoms so I feel a bit like one of those actors hired to help train doctors.  This time I had to use my yoga breathing to help me stop blinking.  First he numbs the eyes with drops. Then, holding my eye open by the eyelashes, he advances with a very bright light right up until it touches the eyeball.  Not easy.  The blink reflex is very strong but the doctors have got no time for any of that nonsense.  A bit more of the anesthetising drops wouldn't go amiss but they seem to be rationing the stuff.  At last I stumble out, dabbing yellow fluid from my eyes, looking and feeling not so very different from the old ladies in wheelchairs on a day out from the care home.  The things that hit you when you turn 50.

I'm so tired today.  I was awake half the night checking the time, scared I would sleep in for the guests' breakfast.  Plus my son, Special Boy, was having a disturbed sleep because someone had told him to have a look at "Saw" movie clips on YouTube.  I've never seen this film but apparently there are several of them and I get an idea of the content from the title.  He told me something about a bear trap and a key stitched into someone's eye (enough with the eyes!).   So that was nice bedtime viewing for him.

Lack of sleep has turned me into a bit of a horror story myself.   I'm trying not to be disheartened with the Revitalift trial.  It's early days...