Nothing Changes, Nothing Changes, and then every thing changes.......

Ten or so years ago every thing changed. Some time during that period I happened upon a book. I don’t remember the book or the author as well as I remember the inscription on the front page. It said ‘’nothing changes, nothing changes, and then every thing changes’’. That stuck with me, it was a very apt description of my life at that time. Kids grown, marriage dying and me needing something; so off I went to University as an almost 50 year old student to embark on study for a Degree in History and Philosophy.  One year later the dying marriage exploded violently, I was single for the first time in 25 years; I was homeless, in debt, no means of support, and studying for my first year exams. Looking back I’ve no idea how I managed, but I did. Regardless of the fact my life was a mess, I stuck at it for three years and gained my degree. Half way through fourth year, my honours year, arthritis struck with a vengeance, I was in pain, unable to walk and unable to get to University. By the time I was well enough to go back to University I had no chance of catching up and I had used up my funding for my honours year. This meant I graduated with a good degree, but without honours.  I didn’t think I would survive those years, but I did, and now I’m actually grateful. If I hadn’t gone through such extreme change and upheaval, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I took the best of me  forward , left the worst of me behind (I hope) and added some bits I never imagined possible.
And now everything is changing again; and just as before, it’s not easy. It’s scary, disorientating and intimidating. I’m preparing for retirement, the government says I can have a state pension next Easter, I can’t wait. I’m taking evening classes in life drawing and painting; at every opportunity I’m out taking photographs, I’m redecorating my house, planning my garden and nibbling away at my debts, all in preparation for my longed for retirement.
Within the last month I’ve had several bits of bad news. My best friend, a lady of my own age who has multiple medical problems some of which I can’t even pronounce, was diagnosed with terminal liver disease. I’m not sure how long she has to live, but I’m guessing its months not years. That was a devastating bit of news that I’m still coming to terms with. Then a work colleague, who has not been seen since Christmas, passed away from cancer a few weeks ago.  She died shortly after her 40th birthday. She was a lovely lady and mother to a 9 year old son. Last week an ex-head girl from the school where I work was found dead by her parents, she was 18, a swimming instructor and about to start University to train as a teacher. She was a wonderful young person with her life ahead of her and she died from (we believe) a seizure while alone in the house. I’m left overwhelmed by the sadness of life. We can go for years and years drifting through life totally oblivious to every one and every thing else. We are encased in a small world bordered by our comfort zone, and then, like the book says, every thing changes. Things happen, they touch your life, they wake you up and they herald change.

The changes slammed into my life last week. I’m the person who looks forward to a retirement painting pictures and taking photographs. I’m very short sighted to start with, any decrease in vision could seriously affect the things I love to do. It all started a week back Thursday, I spent the whole day Thursday cleaning my glasses and trying to figure out what I kept seeing from the corner of my eye. I thought I could see  the bridge of my glasses, then I thought it was a couple of eye lashes sticking up, I thought the blurry bit in the middle of my eye was a smudge on my lenses. There were lots of little black specks wizzing around but I’ve had these before and in the past they’ve just gone away. When I woke up on the Friday morning and could still see those things, the penny dropped, it wasn’t any thing ‘external’; what ever it was, was actually part of my vision. I should have taken it more seriously at that point but I didn’t. I had already arranged to go out to Dundee for the day so off I went; I made a mental note to go to the opticians as soon as possible the following week. The next day, Saturday, I had arranged to go to Aberdeen to see a new exhibition and I thought, it’s nothing strenuous, just sitting in a car and wandering around a gallery that will be fine. I didn’t want to let my friend down and I wanted to see the exhibition. Half way through the afternoon I realised it wasn’t ‘fine’, that ‘thing’, that shadow in the corner of my eye was creeping across my eye and blocking more and more of my vision. We rushed back in an attempt to get to the opticians before they closed, we failed and I promised to phone NHS 24 as soon as my friend dropped me off. I did phone and someone took all the details, she said all the medical staff were busy and someone would phone back. Someone did eventually phone back but by then it was late and I’d thought it obviously wasn’t serious and I could sort it out in the morning. The voice on the other end took all the details AGAIN and asked me to go directly to A&E, not the local A&E because apparently they don’t ‘do’ eyes, but the central A&E 20+ miles away. It was Saturday night, it was late, no 1 daughter  had a couple of glasses of wine that evening and couldn’t take me, no 2 daughter was not drinking but in the process of taking her children back home 20 miles in the opposite direction. So I waited, she took kids home, found someone to sit with them, came back for me and drove me to A&E. Have you ever visited a major A&E dept at midnight on a Saturday?? It’s not a fun place to be, it’s full of abusive or unresponsive people under the influence of drink or drugs or an assorted cocktail of both. Eventually, after 4 hours I saw the Dr but he said to go home and go to the emergency eye clinic at 11 am later that day, Sunday morning. No 2 daughter drove me home, drove herself home, had about 4 hours sleep and then went to work. No 1 daughter, sufficiently recovered from the wine drove me to the emergency eye clinic later that day, only to be told to take me back home, pick up a bag and bring me straight back for admission ready for emergency surgery first thing Monday morning. Apparently this type of surgery is considered major eye surgery. Cause of the problem turned out to be a detached right retina which was torn in three separate places. Surgery first thing Monday morning went OK, not pleasant but infinitely better than going blind in one eye, which was the only alternative. Post eye surgery you have to ‘position’. The position you’re told to adopt depends on the individual and my ‘position’ was face down for 24 hours prior to discharge Tuesday afternoon. Following discharge I have to ‘position’ upright for at least two weeks which means sleeping sitting up and never bending down…….in fact it means doing nothing that doesn’t involve being ‘upright’. Tuesday, no 2 daughter collected me from the hospital and took me to no 1 daughters house where I stayed until this morning.

So now I’m home, no vision at all in the right eye, they said it would return gradually over the next 4 weeks. They also said it doesn’t always work. The operation involved; removing what they called ‘debris’ which is basically the stray bits of jelly stuff that should stay inside the eyeball but escape through the holes where the retina is torn, this stray ‘debris cause all those little black things that wiz around the inside of the eye. Then they use a laser to clean up the torn bits and pull the detached bit back to where it should be. Then they put a tiny bubble of gas behind the retina and this holds every thing in place while it all heals. The gas gradually disperses and then sight returns, or at least it should. I know my sight will not come back fully for a few weeks but I think I need to see just a tiny improvement to know that things are moving in the right direction. So…. Here I sit, up right and practising my one eyed typing while remembering to insert three different drops every 4 hours.
I don’t deal with change very well but I know I have to stay positive. The Dr said I should get my vision back. I’ve always been very short sighted and my vision may not return exactly as it was before, this  means I will need a new prescription for lenses but I need to wait for at least 2-3 months before doing that. I have to take at least 4 weeks off work, maybe more and he did say that as long as I stay upright, computer work will do no damage.
On reflection I guess I am very lucky, unlike my friend I don’t have a terminal illness, unlike other people I knew I’m not in imminent danger of dyeing and I have a good chance of recovering sight in my right eye.  AND;  if I can’t go to work but can stay on the computer here , guess I’ll have time to download all my stuff and find someplace to store it. The changes on Multiply have unsettled me, I’m very afraid of losing contact with people. I have loved my time here; this has been a big part of my life for a long time. Some of the friendships here mean as much to me as relationships with so called ‘real life’ friends, I should hate to lose any one of you even if it means joining more than one social network site. Of course on the plus side, once retired I’ll have more time to visit other sites.  Sometimes I feel more comfortable sitting here typing about my life than I do sitting with lots of people trying to join in conversations. Someone else here said that recently I really do relate to it. Change is never easy, but I have lived my life with change before and come through it, hopefully I can do the same again.

And thank you to every one who took the time to read all of this, I appreciate it.