Dos ojos son mejores que uno.

Yesterday I had a cataract removed from my left eye. I didn’t meet the surgeon until I was in the operating room. That is because the ophthalmologist I had previously spoken with was on leave due to a new baby in his family. I ended up having an equally apt surgeon. Or hopefully it will be the case.

Any sort of surgery is imperfect. Saying, ” … having a cataract removed,” is kind of half of the work performed in 30 minutes or so in the operating room. During the surgery, one’s lens is removed from the eye. And a new artificial lens is implanted, As we age, the lens in an eye often is made opaque. The result is what can be described as a “cloudy lens.” Vision is hampered and colors are less brilliant. In my case, I also see so-called “starburst” halos from light including those from automobiles. I have driven too many times more than I should have with this condition because your depth perception is shot to hell.  Driving becomes dangerous with this condition.

This is what I see at night, plus hundreds of even more lights glaring as such. Hopefully cataract surgery will reduce “starburst” halos.

Cataract surgery is one of the most common surgeries these days.

Most doctors use a technique known as Phacoemulsification. In very general terms the surgeon makes a tiny incision then uses tools to break up the lens and cataract followed by the implanting the new lens.

Different eye drops are used during and after this surgery. Eye drops and a numbing “gel” which enables the surgeon to anesthetize the eye were used in surgery. I was given a little kit at the VA, where my surgery was done Wednesday, that contains an eye shield and three different eye drops. These eye drops are applied for a month or more.

The amount of tape the surgeon used on me could prompt a commercial for whatever company where the medical tape is purchased. I had an IV inserted on top of my hand and it was taped. As the surgery began, my surgeon said she was going to tape head to the bed.

“This is for, in the event that you doze off, you will remember you are on the OR table, she said.

The attending surgeon told those personnel, however many there were, that they and I should not talk when she began to do her thing. And I could only talk if experienced pain. I was given some kind of sedative, I was pretty loose but not knocked out. I must admit when I was rolled into the OR, I felt a small measure of panic. That soon diminished. Although, I was again freaked somewhat when she looked down at me on the table. Perhaps her brown eyes provided perhaps equal parts strangeness and the rest perhaps a bit of attraction. I know that sounds like something George Constanza from “Seinfeld” would say.

After the surgery, the tape was removed on my head. An eye shield was then placed on my eye, held into place by more tape. This was after the other tape holding my head to the table was ripped off and seemingly took skin or hair. Just kidding.

I wore the patch overnight and had to return to see a doctor the next morning. The doctor I saw had been in the OR, but assisted with the surgery.

When she took the tape holding my eye shield, the doctor was careful to remove the tape. The doctor said she was in the OR, and remembered how annoyed I was the day before when that happened. But, I must admit I was pretty stunned when she took off the shield off and everything was, at least from my left eye, bold and beautiful.

“I can see,” I said. The doctor said that was kind of the whole point of all this.

The difference between my left and my right eye are quite stark. When I close my surgically-interventioned eye, the sight from my right eye appeared is if has a slightly brown tint. For some reason, it looks as if all I see from that right eye had been covered in nicotine. It is pretty strange.

My eyesight overall is much better, even using the right eye. I notice some instability in my left eye. But, I am hopeful that I can get that other eye fixed as soon as possible.

I thought about all the precautions given to me before and after surgery. Some of these are common sense such as having someone to drive you. Others were less clear. It is definitely a drag having to take three different eye drop. However, these drops supposedly help healing and preventing harmful infections. This is pretty important for someone like me who has Type 2 diabetes..

I remain helpful my improved and implanted new lens will continue healing and hope my right eye will join its eye brother. To paraphrase an old Mexican proverb, uh well — read the heading.

Hair today. Hickey danger. GOP guy in Mexico.

UPDATE: 5:30 p.m., CNN announced that a report from Reuters said the Mexican president told the GOP candidate that Mexico would not pay for the “wall.” A border wall and having Mexico pay for it has been the central issue in the candidate’s campaign. He told the press this afternoon in Mexico City where he met with the Mexican president that the two had discussed the wall but did not discuss who will pay for it. Not surprising, a lie from the despicable candidate. Too bad the Mexican president didn’t say it while answering about four questions from the press.

While awaiting remarks about the idiot GOP candidate for president and the Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, I have decided to do a little stream of consciousness here.

Attention young lovers: There is now evidence that, no matter the passion of the moment, hickeys aren’t a good thing. Speaking of Mexico, Snopes.com reports that a 17-year-old Mexico City youth died of a stroke that was caused by a hickey. Wow. That’s kind of scary.

*****

Also scary, I had my first pedicure yesterday at a local cosmetology school. But even more out of character for me: I had my first haircut in some 16 years. Here is my reasoning.

My avoidance of the shears stems from price but also I kept a hairstyle that didn’t require a trim. The price of a haircut was way more than I wanted to pay around the turn of the century. That’s the 21st century. A cut these days are even more costly. But practicality was probably the main reason for the shaved head.

Since my male pattern baldness reached its peak around age 40 or so, shaving my head seemed like a pretty reasonable hair style for me. The shaved head wasn’t considered exceptionally weird back then, so I would shave my head every other day. Lately, I just became tired of the hassle. I grew what hair I had for a few weeks. It looked like crap on a stick. I then used my shears to cut the hair close enough where shaving my head would not be significantly difficult. I had gone without a shave of my head for about two weeks up until yesterday. Most recently, to paraphrase David Crosby, I almost cut my gray-white hair. But then I had an idea.

I have been growing a beard since using an electric shaver for several months. The contours of my face, I noticed, after a few days was so that I might have a pretty good beard — a Van Dyke of sorts — in the making. So, I let my beard grow out. Along with my hair needing a trim, my beard needed one as well.

It's a beard, by damn!
It’s a beard, by damn!

I have diabetes so I have to be careful with my feet. Yes eight feet deep has to take care of his feet. This is especially so since during the last year or I have had a couple of toenails removed and hammer toe surgery. So, a nurse told me that I should get a pedicure and could get one at a decent price at local cosmetology schools. That is what I did.

The same student, a friendly young lady, did both the haircut and the pedicure. She did a really phenomenal job. My feet still feels good from the foot job. And both the spa pedicure and haircut cost only $23. I think I will begin going back once a month. So …

La CucarachaLa CucarachaLa CucarachaLa Cucaracha

Okay niños y niñas, the Mexican president Peña Nieto  and the GOP presidential candidate-jerk are about to speak. Here they go.

The Mexican president talked about the importance of  NAFTA in both countries. Forty percent of materials imported into Mexico are made in the U.S., Nieto said. He also said that his responsibility is the welfare of Mexicans, both in Mexico and elsewhere. Implicit in those remarks were Mexicans who are in the United States.

The candidate for president repeated many of his contentions he has made through his campaign. Perhaps the central plank in his run for president is to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and to make Mexico pay for it. He said that the wall was discussed. But in some questions from the press , GOP guy admitted:

“Who pays for the wall? We didn’t discuss that.”

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, speaking on CNN’s The Lead With Jake Tapper called the GOP candidate “a hypocrite.”

The candidate gives his big foreign policy speech tonight in Arizona where he will be welcomed by his good buddy, sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio. I honestly wonder how this d**khead keeps getting elected as he did during the Republican primary yesterday in Arizona. Arpaio has admitted to contempt of court charges for ignoring a federal judicial order. Too bad he wasn’t put in his own jail, in a tent.

What a day off this has been for me. Hopefully, American voters will see through all this bull***t from the candidate, whom I still will not give his name a mention.

 

The internet and the ‘medical student syndrome’

Ed. note: Once again I have been editing after posting. This time I have been receiving help from Japan. So, hold on to your laptop, I might just edit some more.

There is a study I would like to see, and if you have seen such a study, please send it to our e-mail address. This study would gauge how people value (or no) that be-all-end-all tool, the internet. The study I’d like to see would measure quality of information and whether one often finds the quantity of the results too overwhelming. For instance, asking a question formed as such:

“How well does information you receive from the internet help you understand subjects you research?

A. The information is usually helpful in understanding a subject.

B. The information is occasionally helpful.

C. The information is mostly confusing and does not help me understand.

Think about the questions and answers regardless of how well they are constructed. I would pick B. That does not bode well for the internet if a representative sample of users — and definitely not an internet-based query — come to the same conclusion.

I have found the “information superhighway” can cause a 40-car-collision of data overload. In life before the internet I had similar experiences.

I came to that conclusion some 15 years before I ever heard the word “internet” and first used a rudimentary internet connection in my work as a journalist. When I first began training as an emergency medical technician, I had no idea that training would lead to what is a somewhat well-known syndrome.

Some call it “Medical Student Disease” while others describe it as a syndrome rather than a disease. You say potato. I say tuber. Some in the medical profession prefer to call it “nosophobia.”  While that term seems as if a person is afraid of noses — and I’ve found a few scary schnozzolas in my time — the term denotes a fear of illness. Apparently, someone felt that future doctors should not be characterized as hypochondriacs. Hey, if the shoe fits, oh wait, we’re getting off on the wrong foot here. Someone call a podiatrist!

I’m not an EMT anymore. I let my certification lapse almost three dozen years ago. But I was pretty much a hypochondriac for a little while. I finally came to the realization that I am not having this or that problem. No knee problems or back problems or heart problems. I had the majority of those medical experiences in more recent times with the exception of the latter.

I had several tests this year on my heart. It is practical that a man now 60 years old — ugh, that still is a little hard to accept — have testing done on their ticker. This is especially so because several family members had heart problems. I have had high blood pressure, controlled, with medicine for almost 20 years. I’m diabetic. I’m overweight. I haven’t touched any form of tobacco in 15 years. But the bad news is I may have problems with breathing because I smoked two packs a day for about half of 25 years.

Over the last year I’ve had three different types of cardiac testing. The first was an echocardiogram. It appeared to show a slight enlargement in the left portion of my heart. My cardiologist at the VA said that the enlargement was not anything of major alarm. Yeah, but it’s not his heart.

I had shortness of breath upon landing in Albuquerque, N.M. back in July. Upon deplaning I walked up into the jet way and upon reaching the waiting area I had to stop and catch my breath. My breath was already waiting in the Super Shuttle. I experienced breathing problems a few times in ABQ, which is right at a mile high in elevation. I did some reading on the internet and found that even though altitude sickness is found in people somewhere above 8,000 feet it can be seen in people below that altitude. One also has to realize I left a place just a few feet above sea level for almost 30,000 feet while flying in a jet airliner. And I never came down, so to speak, until I returned Southeast Texas,

The shortness of breath also became a reason for the docs wanting a bit more testing.  About two weeks ago I had an “imaging” stress test. This is where one is injected with a medicine that makes your heart beat more rapidly. My heart was not beating very fast. The cardiologist suspected a blood pressure medicine was causing the slow pulse. I quit the meds and my pulse was back to normal.

On Monday I had a “nuclear” stress test. This test involves a radioactive camera injected via IV inside one’s blood and allows pictures to show a much better view of inside the heart. Better than the outside looking in, I suppose.

I got my test results today via email from a physician assistant in the cardio department at the Houston VA. I immediately began looking on the internet for answers — more results than I probably needed —  that explained what the PA was actually saying. I understood that the testing had what was called a normal “ejection factor.” Looking it up on the internet I found the percentage that was given in my results is normal. But what were reputable internet sites also explained that a normal result does not mean a patient cannot also have had so-called “silent heart attacks” or congestive heart failure.

I was getting back into “medical student syndrome” mode with a bit of a furrowed brow when my cardiologist called and told me the test showed my heart was normal in how well the heart pumps with each beat. He said these pictures showed a much better view than the previous echocardiogram. What that means is I have no apparent heart problems. So what do I do? I just wait and see if I have any other symptoms of heart disease.

My relapse of nosophobia or whatever one cares to call it was brought on today by the internet. That and a little more information than I likely needed, or at least information that made sense. The only problem I have now is that I am obsessing over noses. Where’s Barbra Streisand when you need her?

 

Hyper plus, says new doc

Just a note before the weekend. I have been using my tablet in lieu of the laptop I normally use. It is a pain in the ass to be honest.

I went to the new VA doc today. She graduated from medical school in Central America, according to the Texas Medical Board website. The doc seems like a nice lady. I appreciated her calling me after I left with lab results which had not made it to her when I saw her this morning. I was a bit shocked when she told me my A1C results. I kind of knew it would be high this time. I had eaten terribly over the last three months. I didn’t know it would be as high. I have work to do which is to eat better.

The doctor is putting me on a second kind of diabetes meds. I am glad no insulin is in my immediate future. Seem I will have to do the rest.

They say it’s our birthday. Well, just missed it.

Our fair blog quietly celebrated 10 years of existence on Tuesday, April 21. Happy B-day!

All this, meaning eightfeetdeep, started as something to entertain myself as well as a daily writing exercise. This was while I was on unemployment from my last full-time job. I had worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and editor for the previous 15 years at five different Texas newspapers (One doesn’t count.) I had kind of tentatively planned to try my hand at freelancing by the time I was 50 years old. As it turned out I was about six months ahead of schedule.

I have kept up with turning out a daily blog for most of the past 10 years. However, I also have worked a decent-paying part-time job for about seven of those years. During the last year or so as I was given a steady dose of 32-hours a week, as well as serving free now for a few years as a regional vice president of my union local. Consequently, my output slowed down. The same can be said of my paying freelance jobs.

For a couple of years I made money as a freelance journalist. When I say “I made” money, I don’t mean I came out ahead. Neither did I “make” money, as in printing up my own $20-bills. Now what made me think of that? Uh, nothing Secret Service Special Agent Whatshisname.

All of the previous happened as I have become older and developed a few health problems, diabetes the most serious one. I really have improved my health as for Type II diabetes, my A1C falling on a downward trend to 7.1. I also had surgery on my toe Tuesday that was spurred by my diabetes. I developed a ulcer on my left second toe and it never healed completely. So my podiatrist suggested about a month ago that he do hammertoe surgery on that toe in order to keep from striking the injured toe and in doing so allowing my toe to “all hang out” so to speak.

I have a bandage on my foot that I was told to stay off of except for going to the bathroom or kitchen. I have had to do a bit more than that, though carefully, because I am a (confirmed or unconfirmed, I’m not quite sure which one) bachelor.

So, I don’t know what my toe is doing, if anything, and will not know until Doc unwraps it on Monday.

I have tried mostly through using my blog name as my identity to, not shield it, but to not necessarily expose it. I certainly am fooling nobody because so many of my stories have been spread among folks I know, who at the very least, can put two plus two together gets something between three and five.

This past decade has exposed me to some very interesting experiences. Some — like Hurricanes Rita and Ike — were exciting. Others, like living in my truck for about a month at one time, and losing two brothers last year were sad. Those hurricanes were a source of income for awhile, as I freelanced for a major metropolitan newspaper. I freelanced in suburbia for about six months as well while staying in the Dallas area with a friend.

I am in the beginning stages of gathering then culling some of my favorite posts over the last 10 years and, most likely, adding to them for a book. Whether it will be hardcover, e-book, or body art, I don’t know. I need a publisher. If you are a publisher and are not trying to scam me — I will check you out scrupulously — send me an e-mail to the address on the blog.

Looking at my Statcounter stats, I am pleased to see I still get an average of 20 page views per day. Only one or two are return visits, but that is understandable due to my recent lack of output. Most recently, those page views came from the United States and 20 other countries including Iran, Russia, Mexico, Vietnam and, oh, Canada.

By the way, the name, “eightfeetdeep,” yes, it did come in part from the HBO series “Six Feet Under.” I decided not to go along with convention by saying why six feet when you can go eightfeetdeep?

I have thought at times trying to make money through a blog, not especially this one. I do still take donations. But I don’t know what’s to come in the future. I certainly never planned on blogging for 10 years.