Happened again

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

I had my eyes dilated two days in a row. The cataract surgery people called and had an appointment for me this afternoon. The doctor was really nice. She concurred I need surgery. Then we had a weird conversation about what would I like her to improve in my vision. Like? What? I am not a candidate for fanciness – just for the straight, boring, covered-by-insurance (if one’s insurance worked, which ours doesn’t) lens. (Keith got an email today that someone from the COBRA company had seen the request to get the information needed from his former company – sent Friday – and they would let him know when COBRA contacted the original company. But that hadn’t happened in the past three days. Augh.) She sort of asked if I still wanted to wear glasses and I was just staring at her. Yes? No? What? Nothing was going to happen to my right eye, so I still need glasses, don’t I? I said just put it back the way it was.

There is an added risk of cataract surgery failure because of the retina surgery. It is not likely, but a slightly greater risk. If it fails, a retina surgeon will do a second surgery to fix things. That surgery would involve another gas bubble and no flying. Even though the risk is slight, I am opting to postpone surgery until we get home from Paris in May. I should be able to schedule it very soon after we get home, then we have almost 6 weeks until we leave for Amsterdam.

If Alexander were here, he would be helping me off my high horse. These issues are so far beyond first world problems they can only be called BarbaraProblems. My life is so charmed and privileged. I do not forget that any day. I will have a lot of experiences with one blurry eye, but that is okay. I am getting pretty used to it.