Quibble of light and color

Color is the spectrum of light; white is the absence of all color and black is the presence of all color. I’ve learned a couple more things about color over the years, but those two facts are my color bedrock. It’s about perception, I've decided.

I am inundated with the appreciation of others of how well I see colors, post cataract surgery. “Don’t the colors just amaze you?”

Short answer, “No,” they simply are colors I can now see. Hunter green has always been hunter green, navy blue, navy blue. Once again I can tell one from the other.  Anything can fall from my hand and roll under my desk, and I can find it without a flashlight.

There is something extraordinary I can see again. The night. I can see the entire road I am driving on. I can see across three lanes of traffic and a grassy median. I can sit on the porch and watch the night sky over the tree line. I bet, if I were Daniel Boon I could drop a squirrel with one shot from the top of a pine tree on a moonless night. If I knew how to shoot a gun.

My daughter asked me today when I could wean myself from the “coming home from the eye doctor after drops sunglasses.”

“No, no, not my almost movie star specs!” I showed her no light gets in from the top or from the sides, and I can wear them right on top of my head when I’m indoors.

Occasionally there almost is too much light indoors, too. But, I’m tough!

On top of my head as I write.

Seven thirty alarm

Two years on with grandchildren and I find life not too much changed except I bought a second alarm clock.  These children came from a home where survival skills were required, so they still get themselves up, fed and out the door in the morning. They don’t need the grownups around.

I used to do other things in summers and afternoons, now I ferry children. I used to do nothing at night, except make a ten mile round trip twice a month on county roads to attend Board of Trustee meetings. Now I have bright new eyes that see lane lines, and I make night runs ferrying children. All I needed was a second alarm.

Changing the alarm setting on a digital clock is the pits. Changing the hour setting is bad, but clicking through the numbers of the minutes makes me frantic. Sometimes I don’t release the trigger soon enough and have the whole job to do over again. When the once this week or month or year event has come and gone, the alarm time needs reset.

I bought a second alarm clock to set at seven thirty for Sunday mornings. I have enough time to eat my breakfast before we leave to take Hamilton to church at eight fifteen. I seldom leave home without breakfast, but seven thirty even worked to eat and leave ten minutes sooner, with Emily too, to drop her at the farm after I dropped Hamilton at church.

The children respect grandma’s seven thirty alarm. If there is a weekend event they plan carefully to schedule it around that alarm, or the regular, eight o’clock alarm. They are good, respectful children. I love them for that.

Emily and Angela, the Arsenic in Rice team, were sent on to regionals, as you may recall. They are tomorrow, at the University of Akron. I had to tinker with the seven thirty alarm in February, to get the team to the STEM judging at Kent State before sunrise. I wondered and waited to hear about the Northeastern Ohio event.

Emily is quite pumped for this event, and I’m sure Angela is, too.  Emily hopes they will make super judging and be sent on to the state event. Recalling the many weaknesses of their original presentation I inquired into the nature of her hopes and was assured the two of them have made substantial changes to their original presentation. I wonder if they got more test strips from the lab, as the judges seemed to have been impressed by seeing the strips indicate arsenic in water.

And what time must we leave, I asked? They have to be at the university at seven. However, Grandma need not mess with the seven thirty alarm; Angela’s father will pick up Emily on the way.

A windy Friday afternoon.

Last hurrah and a card carrying pair

Yesterday's cataract surgery was uneventful; in at nine, home at one. After my missing breakfast and a long nap  I was ready for supper and bed.

Returning this morning for the unveiling seemed another matter. We had one more round of snow, starting about nine last night.  Six inches, ending no later than one or two in the morning, could not forestall the call these children have come to hate: School is Cancelled, due to deteriorating conditions.

It only looks bad; our road is plowed. It is eminently clear; the state awarded five extra snow days, and this district intends to take them.

The driver and the passenger with the tea strainer eye (blue this time) left early, just in case the school really had better intelligence than the local traffic report. We were thirty minutes early for the appointment, and I was seen immediately. They were happy for a patient to take up the slack.

We were driving home about the time I was scheduled to be seen. I am a registered, card carrying cataract lens replacement person, with wrap around sun glasses I am happy to have. It's bright out there.

I am totally convinced my camera's fall did more than break the flash; its lens suffered too. Focus is simply gone! I researched the internet; it's a not infrequent by-product of not using the wrist strap.

Dodd Camera can expect me around lunch time tomorrow.

My Eye!

When I was a kid “My Eye!” was an important part of everyday speech in the vocabulary of most of us; even a several times a day part of speech.

“I can run to that tree faster than you!”

“My Eye!”, and away we went.

“I’m going to get a brand new five speed bike for my birthday!”

“My Eye!”

“Yes, I am!”

“Un uh!” (Phrases like “No way” weren’t yet invented.)

I say “My eye” to folks rather frequently these days. I’ve advocated the removal of these cataracts for several years now, and even in January, when I proved my horrible night vision in some special testing (I failed the big E through bright lights test; I could not see the big E through the glare of a headlight light!), my ever cautious doctor would not let me schedule the second surgery until we passed through the first.

“It might not solve your problem,” he cautioned.

My Eye!

One day later, at my post op visit, I scheduled my other eye. For March 17^th, the first available date. Two months later, and all I want is this whole affair behind me. “If anyone cancels...” I said. Yea, right. Who’s giving up their date to see again.

Yesterday was another useless snow day; I went back to bed after being rudely awakened by the obviously millennial school manager at 6-15 for a two hour bus delay and again at 7-45 for school cancellation due to inclement weather. I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep until 9-15! Two inches of cotton under me and two inches of comforter over me!

Quarter of ten, about to tuck into breakfast, and I got the call. Some wimp cancelled their pre-op visit, meaning they also give up their cataract surgery date of February 17^th. It’s all mine! It can keep on snowing and soon I won’t see yellow snow from my left eye and white snow from my right. All white, all right!

The weather was so awful yesterday that the kids and I spent the day in the car, running errands. Snow day, my eye! 

.

I go on about the light, but I have to give colors credit, too. I had no idea my eyes were still blue. I thought they had become grey. On the other hand, something rolled under my desk recently and I found and retrieved at once, and without the use of a flash light. I wonder, when I have two new eyes, if I will see through buildings. 

What was that masked stuff?

I have orders. Wear the tea strainer to bed for one week.

Wear the wrap arounds to step out.

Use three different drops eight times a day.

Weekly appointments. At the third week the doctor will measure for the corrective glasses lens. I did not spend the extra thousand something for the lens to correct my awful astigmatism as I still need reading glasses. I have worn glasses for the last sixty three years; too late to change. Not to mention, the corresponding extra thousand something for the other eye. I’m coming out ahead here.

The magnificent staff piled on hot blankets yesterday. When the doctor remarked the nurse said they stopped when I no longer regretted leaving my down comforter at home. I heard the doctor chuckle.

I heard everything. I saw red and blue, yellow and green in the bright lights. I heard the doctor say “This pupil is just too small; I need to use a spring.”

“Wow. A spring. How neat,” my placid self observed.

In the middle of the night I woke up. Did he take it out?

Another chuckle today. “Of course I did.”

“What was that stuff?”

“It’s like valium. No, it’s like propofal. No, darn, I just blocked on it.”

As soon as my right eye sees properly, the left one gets it.  The right eye is arguing with the left over which will process color, only a few hours post tea strainer. My sister says that would make her crazy. It is interesting to see the electric blue office scrubs of the clinic staff suddenly have a patch of muddy blue swim across. They weren't electric blue last week, I can tell you that.

Arrrrrgh

I thought it would be a black eye patch,

Not a tea strainer

Glasses to see from the other eye

Out of the question.

Tomorrow, I understand,

I'll be a new person.