LOOKING forward

I don't like riding my bike at night. I don't even really like driving at night. I always thought it was inevitable with age that my sight would deteriorate, but I seemed to be losing too much, too fast.

I whined about it to my regular opthamologist for several years and she just sweetly said, "age, dear."  After a few years of that, I quit going to her. If she couldn't make things better, why pay out of pocket for her to prescribe glasses?

But on a visit to a retina specialist (you don't even want to know how I started at the local military medical clinic to get a work-up for glasses and ended up with a retina specialist at Walter Reed -- but it involved tears [mine, not theirs]), this cute young doctor said, "Oh, well we can fix that."

Just.Like.That.

Turns out I have central nuclear sclerotic cataracts, too small for a civilian insurance company to think they're "worth" fixing, and I'm too young for the insurance companies to say that I have them...But for this guy who is a specialist and sees thousands of eyes, it's something he sees and can fix (or so he said in May).  He told me that he wanted to see me at the end of the summer and he'd take more measurements and then we would proceed with removal.

I, still in search of better night vision (and frankly, day vision too these days), asked, "and then we can order new glasses?"

He looked at me and said, "once we do this, you won't need corrective lenses."

My jaw dropped. I've been wearing glasses since third grade. I can't imagine what it's like to go without them. So of course, the next thing out of my mouth was, "Can we do this tomorrow?"

He laughed and said, no, we'd wait until the fall.

Boy, I held onto that promise because in military medicine, anything that's scheduled a "ways" out may not happen. The doc might deploy, the clinic may reorganize or get full treating active duty folks ... any number of things can mess up the plan, including the paperwork not following the recommendation. But I was ready. I had the date circled on my calendar that I would call them and ask, "is it fall yet?"

And then miracle of miracles, I received an appointment letter FROM them to come back to see him next week.  I didn't have to chase them down and make them do what they promised.

So ... Tuesday is the day to re-evaluate. Can you imagine how excited I am? Even if it's BRILLIANT riding weather, I don't care. My son is going with me to drive home after my eyes are dilated. I hope that I will be clutching a surgery date in my hand!

I wonder if I should ask for good, expensive bike lights for night riding for my birthday in September.