Saturday, March 21, 2009

I hate my eyes.... sigh....

I managed to finish up a few shawls that were gifts, but have been having a little trouble crocheting for any long stretch lately. Due to my failing vision, I have to hold my work up pretty close to my face to see the stitches. I don't know what the difference is lately, but over the past few days, my right arm has gotten to hurting quite badly, and that's the only reason I can think of for it.

SIGH.... so I'm going to TRY to take a break for a day or two, and give the arm a rest to see if that makes a difference. My sweet hubby suggested that I put some pillows next to me to prop my arm on, perhaps that would help.

This vision stuff is frustrating beyond words. OK, I could deal with giving up some finely detailed work when it first began. I used to do some beadwork & counted cross-stitch, had to give those up quite some time ago. But for whatever reason, the vision problems seem to have accelerated over the past 6 months or so. I can't see clearly enough to do the precise cutting needed for quilting so I haven't done that in some months now. Drawing has been out of the picture for the last few years. It seems that little by little, all the things I enjoy doing are slowly being taken away, *frustrating**!!!! As long as I hold things up about 4-6" in front of my eyes, I can focus on it, but further than that, it's all a big fuzzy blur. LOL, when I'm on my computer, I'm sitting here with my nose literally about 4" from the screen, so I'm sure that exacerbates the problem, but what am I supposed to do - just not use my computer at all? Bah!!!

On a hopeful note, hubby's retirement reinstatement has just been turned over to the final leg of being approved so **MAYBE** within the next 6 months or so, they'll finally get that taken care of & we'll have our medical insurance again. At which point, one of the first things we're doing is getting the eye surgery I need, that will *hopefully* clear up my vision to some extent. (At the moment, I'm "legally blind" due to cataracts that keep getting worse all the time....) I've always been very near-sighted all my life. Had surgery on both eyes for detached retinas in the past, and had cataract surgery on my left eye already about 7 years ago - the lens replacement wasn't quite right though, so when/if we can, I'll probably have that eye re-done. But my right eye was always my "good" eye, so it wasn't a problem until the cataracts kicked in heavy on my right eye.... sigh, oh well, you gotta take what life throws at you & work around it as best as you can, I guess..... I just hope to goodness that maybe before too much longer, we'll have insurance again & I can get the surgeries done.

I'm going to try his idea of propping my arm up on some pillows to see if that eases the strain of holding that arm up at such a high angle while I crochet. I am NOT going to give up crocheting, no matter what it takes to be able to keep on with it.... that's my "mainstay" hobby & blind or not, I am not going to lose it too....

Sorry for the vent - just frustrated w/ this at the moment....

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