First the health report – on Tuesday, October 28 I had an outpatient surgical procedure to repair a macular hole in my left eye. I then had a follow-up visit with the surgeon the next day and he told me that all had gone very well and that I seemed to be doing just fine – even though I really had very little vision in my left eye at that time. This Wednesday morning I will see the doctor again for my one week follow-up appointment, and I am happy to report that all continues to go very well and the vision in my left eye is improving with the passing of each day. I have deep gratitude for the multitude of caring and skilled health professionals who now are able to fix things that in years past would have become something that a person just had to learn to live with as the problems continued and the condition would likely continue to deteriorate.

I know that I have promised to write more about the dilemma over my date of birth – February 2 or February 9 – and – I will do that in the next post, but since I am already into a discussion of vision I will continue that discussion and – at long last – get to the birthday dilemma in my next post.

It seems to me that everyone who is biologically related to me wears glasses – many of us since we were young children. Before I understood what was happening it was easy to observe that most of the females in the family wore very thick glasses while most of the males wore glasses that were not as cumbersome as the ones required by the females. I later learned that almost everyone in the family was or is myopic (nearsighted) – the females all seem to be extremely myopic while the vision of the males was not as compromised as that of the females – but – all of the males were also afflicted with some degree of astigmatism.

Around the time my daughter was two years old I learned that all of this is caused by a genetic problem that causes extreme myopia in the females – often combined with some degree of macular degeneration. I also learned that the males in the family are the carriers of the genetic problem and are the reason that all of the females have the extreme vision problems.

Somehow this seemed to be a good subject to write about as I return to this blog from my recovery from the repair of the macular hole.

One other matter that continues to make me curious – I have had two heart catheterizations and within days of each have developed a problem that required eye surgery – the first time for a detached retina in the right eye and this last time for a macular hole in the left eye. Numerous medical professionals have assured me that there is no connection between the two – but – I am still not convinced. If any of you are aware of people with similar stories I certainly would love to hear them – but – in the meantime I will just assume that I have experienced strange coincidence on the only two occasions of my life with similar circumstances.

Just so you won’t be concerned – both heart caths went very well. During the second one a stent was placed in my left anterior descending artery. We are very grateful that it was not until after a successful placement of the stent that we learned that this problem is often referred to by those in the know as “The Widow Maker.”

Next time – the birthday dilemma!!!