The other eye and other delays.

The New Year brought good news, bad news and news; well we were unsure how to classify some of it.

The Peace Corps informed us that there was no hurry to complete our medical evaluations because, due to budget problems in Washington DC, they weren’t going to send any volunteers in the second half of the year.  It would be at least a year before we would be called to serve so we had some time for my eyes to recover.  This also meant that we didn’t have to rush to put our house on the market in the spring. 

Most importantly, I couldn’t see in one eye and that had to be dealt with.  On January 4^th we returned to my ophthalmologist’s office for another biweekly visit; only this time it was different.  The doctor, with Marilyn watching, had his assistant hold my head against a padded bracket and proceeded, by hand, to poke a needle into my eye repeatedly.  Even though we had discussed the possibility of my needing this procedure; it was still a little bit of a shock.

By my next visit to the doctor I was seeing better if having double vision can be called “seeing better”.  We didn’t know it then but my eye was finally on the way to recovery and it continued to improve throughout the month of January.

At this time we were still evaluating whether to sell our house or simply rent it out.  We were looking at the possibility of purchasing rental properties and were seriously considering traveling to Nicaragua to look at investing in a small casita in a golf course development on the Pacific coast.  A positive aspect to these possibilities was that we would always have a place to live and a place in which to store some of our remaining stuff.  Obviously, we hadn’t quite yet let go of the little house on the golf course retirement concept and were still planning to keep some of our “stuff”.

We had been working diligently to convert our banking, insurance, tax filing, credit cards and other bills to be completely electronic.  Believe it or not; it can be rather difficult to go completely “paperless” with the insurance and investment community being the hardest cases.  We looked at the rows of filing cabinets in our garage containing past financial records, client information, research, writing and 50 years of photographs and realized that we had an incredibly large scanning and shredding project in front of us.  Thus, began a very long project that, at times, we were unsure if we would ever finish.

We had been reading periodicals such as International Living, Live and Invest Overseas, and The Overseas Retirement Letter  which had sparked our interest in a variety of places that we might want to visit or even live for a period of time.  Places such as Spain, France, Italy, Thailand, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Columbia and Uruguay were touted as having a high quality of life while remaining reasonably inexpensive.  These countries, and others, reportedly welcomed expats and some even had straightforward visa, residency, banking, tax and importation regulations for those wishing to live, invest or retire there.  The idea of traveling extensively after serving in the Peace Corps was starting to take hold.

By early February I could see 20/15 in my problem eye and it was time to turn our attention to the other one.  The procedure this time would be different and it was expected that it would take 3 to 6 months for my eye to heal completely and achieve the best possible vision.  The procedure went as expected and once again, for several weeks, I could only see well through one eye; the other one now but other than readers, no more glasses!

My golf game was in tatters, I was 15 pounds heavier and in terrible physical condition and my old back problem was beginning to resurface after spending 3 months doing nothing but sitting on the couch while I couldn’t see well enough to do anything.  I needed to get back to work immediately because several of my clients were experiencing significant difficulties.  This meant a lot of travel and stress. 

About this time I had a conversation with my friend and physical therapist Widd Workman at Diamondback Physical Therapy.  Widd had worked with me to rehab my shoulder after rotator cuff surgery and I had been very pleased with the results.  Widd developed program for me to strengthen my back, legs and core and I started to put my poor old, neglected, out of shape body back to work.

Lasik eye surgery, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Part of our planning process involved reducing the number of things we needed to carry around with us and utilizing things that were easily replaceable, anywhere.  My bifocals and prescription sunglasses made this list and we decided, after determining that I was a candidate, to have Lasik surgery performed on my eyes leaving me needing only a cheap pair of readers.

We scheduled the procedure for December 2^nd which was very important for the Peace Corps medical clearance process.  Among other things, the Lasik procedure required a six month waiting period, post-surgery, before final medical clearance could be obtained.  Since we were tentatively scheduled to enter the Peace Corps in September, our medical clearances had to be obtained by no later than July.

I had completed all of the pre-procedure items carefully and presented myself at the vision center early the morning of December 2^nd.  The plan was to do both of my eyes that day and it was expected that within a week my corrected vision would be working perfectly.  My eyes were prepared, I was given a mild sedative (for nerves) and my doctor cut my flaps.

After waiting for about 30 minutes it was time for the laser.  After making me comfortable and securing my head the doctor pulled back the flap on my dominant eye and started grumbling.  The laser procedure went ahead as planned and the doctor seemed to take quite a bit of care smoothing my flap back into place.  He then said we weren’t going to do both eyes that day and that he’d speak to my wife and I in a few minutes.

Turns out, I share, with only about 2 percent of the population, a condition known as a “floating Bowman layer”.  The layers of your eye are similar to your skin with the outer layer called the epithelium.  It is this epithelium that the flap is made of during a Lasik procedure and the layer underneath is known as the Bowman layer.  My condition meant that my Bowman layer was excessively slippery which causes the flap to have difficulty reattaching.  The doctor said that the flaps usually reattach within a week for people with this condition and that if everything went well, we’d do my other eye the following week.

Everything proceeded normally for the next week and I again prepared myself for the Lasik procedure; this time on my other eye.  I awoke the morning of the procedure feeling like a thorn had been stuck in my eye.  We went to the vision center and after looking at my eye the surgeon cancelled my procedure telling me that my flap had pulled off.  After debriding my eye (real fun I can assure you) the doctor put a contact bandage on the eye and told me the flap would grow back and attach in a couple of weeks.

Twice a week in the ophthalmologist’s office was becoming time consuming and a little problematic.  The doctor did not want me to drive, read, watch TV, use a computer or be out in the wind; wow!  On December 16^th we discovered that I had an additional problem; I was a “steroid responder”, a condition I shared with about 5 percent of the population.  This is important because the primary treatment post-Lasik is to use steroids to reduce the inflammation in the eye.  This condition caused my eyes to develop a very high IOP (intra-ocular pressure) which can lead to glaucoma among other things.  I was now on a boutique steroid along with glaucoma medication.

Everything was going well as Christmas rolled around.  My eye had been debrided a couple more times and I was beginning to see better with the treated eye.  We enjoyed a nice Christmas with the family and were looking forward to a new year that would have quite a lot of changes.

The morning after Christmas, a Sunday, I again awoke feeling as though a thorn was in my eye.  This time we knew exactly what it was and amazingly, my doctor answered his phone and arranged to meet us in his office at 8am that morning.  Since I had been wearing goggles to sleep in and had therefore not been rubbing my eyes, it was determined that my eyelid had been drying to my eye and pulling the flap off when I opened my eye in the morning. 

The doctor once again debrided my eye and, after moment’s thought, put tear duct plugs in the eye and sent me home with new prescriptions and what can only be called “goop” to put in my eyes before bed.  He told me that if the flap didn’t attach in the near future that he’d need to perform a procedure in which my eye would have to have a pattern perforated into it.  By now, I just wanted my eye to be better and took what he told me in stride without really listening.

The rest of the holiday season passed in a blur, literally.  While I could see colors through my treated eye, everything was simply a smear and my condition did not improve in spite of my bi-weekly debridement and careful home treatment.  By this time, I had put on about 15 pounds due to the absolute lack of activity and we were seriously concerned that I might have been blinded by the procedure.  The new year arrived with little hope of our obtaining medical clearance from the Peace Corps in time to leave in September; I still had another eye to do!

My appointment with my doctor on January 4^th rolled around……..

Back home again.....

Well, after more than a month away, we returned to a long list of things we needed to do.  Prior to leaving we had established free Gmail accounts because we knew would not be able to use our cable company’s email when we unsubscribed.  We took the opportunity on this trip to begin training our friends and clients to use the Gmail accounts.  We had also set up free Skype accounts and traded contact information with clients, family and close friends.

Needless to say, client issues didn’t stop just because we were focused 24/7 on becoming English teachers.  Legal documents, financial projections and emergency consultations were needed as always but we soon ran into a snag.  Our Gmail and Skype arrangements were available and worked as advertised but the problem is this: Spain time is 8 or 9 hours ahead of Arizona time depending upon the time of year leaving a narrow and undesirable window of time to communicate by voice or video with your clients when you are teaching until 9pm and clients don’t want to wait until weekends.  We were beginning to realize that maybe we just couldn’t take our current jobs with us when we were traveling.

We both had plenty of fires to put out and in addition, while we were gone, two very large packages had arrived for us from the Peace Corps.  Our medical packages had arrived along with our nomination to serve beginning in September in North Africa (Morocco had the only business consultant programs in that region).  Pleasantly surprised at the idea of serving in Morocco we opened the packages and were immediately overwhelmed by the sheer volume of comprehensive and seemingly repetitive information required.

We were going to need to obtain medical records from as long as 30 years ago, schedule appointments with multiple physicians and dentists, obtain labwork, vaccine boosters, x-rays, MRIs, colonoscopies; the list went on forever and although there is a small amount of reimbursement available from the Peace Corps for this, it was still going to be expensive. 

Additionally, we noticed that the Peace Corps required you to bring two pair of eyeglasses which for me was problematic because I had regular lenses for driving and normal activities, bifocals for reading and working and very expensive prescription sunglasses.  Mike really did not want to haul six pairs of glasses around the world.  The holidays were coming up, business travel was required and he had an appointment to see an ophthalmologist about Lasik surgery.

By Thanksgiving we had everything business related back under control and it was time to deal with a series of domestic matters.  We had to evaluate what we wanted to do with the house (sell or rent), how much stuff to put in storage and what to sell, what to do with our vehicles and how to complete our medical package for the Peace Corps.  After our visit to the ophthalmologist to learn about Lasik we decided that this was a good step to take in the simplification process of our lives.

It was wonderful to be back among friends and to share the holiday with our family.  We also found ourselves missing the people we had just spent a very intense month with in Granada.  Both friends and family soon realized that we had fallen in love with Spain in general and Granada in particular and we were learning how important Facebook was going to be for us.

A quick word about Facebook:  The younger generation tends to live their lives online and very publicly and this held, and still holds, no interest for us.  Sharing interesting experiences, mostly through photos, is why we use Facebook because it is a forum in which we can share with our selected family and friends in an efficient manner; basically update everybody at once.  You have a certain amount of control with whom you share and communication can be public or private. 

Facebook is also a way to stay in touch with new or old friends who are a long way away and we have found ourselves frustrated in the effort to stay in touch with our friends that don’t use Facebook because it is significantly more difficult.  Also, quality access to the internet is not guaranteed and can sometimes be sporadic while traveling.  We had seen how the young, European and Australian contingent of our TEFL group used a combination of cheap cell phones, Skype and Facebook to stay in touch, we were gradually learning.

Then it was time for Mike to have Lasik surgery and our world came to a screeching halt.