Suddenly I SEE!

So on Friday January 21st I took a major step toward defeating my blindness. Lots of people weren't aware of blind I actually was. It was a well-kept secret...really. I wore my glasses to drive and to read subtitles at movies or any other time I felt I really wanted to SEE what was going on. I've had my glasses since I was 18 and went off to college knowing full well that I couldn't put it off any longer. There would big lecture halls and I needed to see the board. I specifically remember asking the eye doctor that gave me the glasses 13 years ago if it were possible for me to get LASIK and she literally scoffed at me and said, "Your eyes aren't THAT bad". Well, ok, fine I could see in general and back then LASIK wasn't as widespread as it is today. But my vision is bad enough that I have a restriction on my license (which I'll need to change!) not to mention the fact that I couldn't visually recognize a person walking down the street if I was sitting in my driveway. I can't tell you how many times I just said "hi" and then Cal would yell, "Mom! Who was that?" and I'd be like SSSHHHHHH! I don't KNOW! I can't see them! I did get fairly good at useing other discerning factors and could usually pick out a person I was looking for, say in a crowded restaurant, by their basic shape, height, girl/guy features. But the anxiety of knowing I had to try to find someone in a crowd of people was always anxiety-producing.





Over the years I've been told by multiple eye doctors that it would be in my best interest NOT to get contacts or wear my glasses often because then I would "get used to it" and never be able not to have them. Seems a little backwards I know, but I guess it sort of makes sense. They said as long as I was able to manage that it was ok. LASIK has always been on my mind and I'm not even going to lie here, but I wanted to make sure I knew what my children looked like before I did it...just in case...and I can now safely say that I think this is the best thing I've ever spent money on (although I feel like I just recently said that about something else. I don't care, this trumps ALL!) And I did take each little kiddo's face between my hands and memorize it before I left for the surgery, you know, just to be sure.

The procedure was definitely bizarre. I was really nervous once I got there and my heart rate clocked in at 83 just while they were telling me what I'd have to do post-operatively. They gave me a valium when I got there but it didn't kick in yet when I was ready to start so it was VERY nerve-wracking. I was clenching my teeth and gripping my belt with both hands!! The first eye went a little better only because I didn't exactly know what to expect. They tape the upper and lower eye lashes open and then put a speculum in my eye so I wouldn't blink. I felt like I was trying really hard to blink any way and for the first minute or two after it was put in it hurt a tiny bit like on the outer edge of my eye, more like my skin not my eye. They had already put in numbing drops so I don't think I could feel anything on my actual eyeball. So then this machine comes down and put enormous amounts of pressure on your eye/face. Weird. You look at a red light the whole time. I think it's mostly to keep you focused on where you should be looking and they take pictures and count down from 30. They had told me they would do the countdown so I thought I was DONE after that but no, those were just the pictures. Then they focus the laser on you and lock it in so if you do move, it moves with you. Good to know. They start the 30 second countdown again and this time there's noise and it smells like burning flesh. Awesome. Way to calm you down right?! So the laser does it's work and then they need to smooth the flap that they just created back down. This is by far the most bizarre but least nerve-wracking part. It looks like your looking through a window and that they are wiping it clean but in your brain you know that in actuality he's touching your eye! Crazy! So they let you just marinate for a minute and put lots of drops in before they move on to the other eye.

During the second eye, after the intense-pressure machine or as it was coming off my eye for some reason my whole body convulsed. Kind of like when you are about to fall asleep and you feel like your body "jumps". Well I did that and I almost lost it. I kind of gasped and whispered "sorry". And he was like oh it's ok, just the suction of the machine. I was SO horrified that I could move that much and worried that I would when it actually mattered but somehow was able to calm myself down and get through the last couple minutes and be done! All in all it only took about 5 minutes per eye. Then I sat up, got down from the table, and went home to rest all day!

I got to have a nice little break the rest of the day. They told me that the first two hours would be the most uncomfortable and so I should try to SLEEP not just rest if at all possible. No problemo for me. We all know I can sleep at any time of night or day. I popped myself a second valium and out. I did wake up when the kids were in the dining room at noon. But other than that I got my two hours in before I got up at 1:30pm to eat some lunch. On my way back to bed I met Cal coming out of the bathroom and he gasped and said, "Momma you can open your eyes!" which was funny because it was the exact same thing Ben said when he saw me later in the day for dinner. I managed to take advantage of a quiet naptime for the boys and went right back to sleep for another two solid hours. Ahh...the bliss of daytime naps. I WAS getting a little worried about how I was going to sleep at night. I stayed up the rest of the day and listened to my pre-arranged book on CD, The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo. It was fun and different since I've never tried that before. By the time dinner came around and then I chatted with Eric at night, it was bedtime, and surprise surprise, no trouble sleeping the night away. Had to make a quick stop for a checkup first thing Saturday morning where I was dubbed "best flap of the day" and told I now had 20/15 vision and then went back to MA for the weekend.

The fact that I can now see FROM MY HOUSE if the flag on my mailbox is up or down is just A-MAZING to me. Eric laments that now he has to hear about, FOR MONTHS, what I can now see. It's cool, ok?! Think about having a disability and then curing it! Had a minor setback on Day 5. I was in the middle of something and my hands weren't free when Seth came barreling towards me and whacked me in the eye. Not good. He didn't poke me, my eyes were shut but considering I can't even WIPE my eyes or take a shower with my face in th water because the water pressure could be too much for a whole week, I figured a good wallop to the eye was pretty serious. So I called and sure enough they wanted to see me ASAP to make sure I didn't dislodge the flap (although they were pretty sure I didn't because I would be in a lot of pain apparently) and/or to make sure it wasn't wrinkled at all. All was well when I got checked but my other eye was a little blurry and upon examination much drier. So she put a plug in my puncture. In other words, she took what looked like a tiny piece of plastic and with tweezer inserted it into my tear duct...all while I was just sitting there. I was thinking holy shit, what if I blink but she didn't even mention it. She did get it in there easier than I thought and that was that. She said it melts away in 3 months and will prevent the eyedrops and I guess natural eye juice from draining and help it stay moist. I'm told the wetter my eyes the better, faster, and easier they heal.

So that was my eye journey so far. I'm SO looking forward to Saturday when I can wash my face and get all this dried up goop off my eyelashes and eyelids. Soon I can also stop two of the three eyedrops I'm using and I can move to putting the last one in only once an hour instead of every half hour! It's been a little bit of pain but totally worth it!!

Check out explanation of pics below!

My thunder grey toilet!

As promised, here are the pictures of the finished part of the basement. We just got the carpet installed today and the boys think it's wonderful they don't have to put shoes on to go down in the basement! They took the liberty of playing golf in the bedroom before the furniture gets put in! It's REALLY hard to do the bathroom justice in pictures. I have to say, I do love, love, LOVE it. It came out better than I could have hoped for. The only major thing left to do is put in the glass for the shower and then there's a few odds and ends the carpenter has to finish up but otherwise - DONE! It feels good not to have to deal with people in my house constantly anymore and I can't wait until someone uses everything!!!!

2011! What a whirl...what a whirl!

Wow! The first 11 days of 2011 have been jam packed! Not even sure where this new year is going but it started out with a bang or a blah to be more precise but we'll get to that later. Looks like my pictures got put on the blog from most recent so I'll start from today and back track a little.



As per usual, we waited to have Cal's birthday party with his school friends until after all the hub bub of the holidays. So this past Saturday we trekked to the SPCA and spent some time with the animals...actually we spent a lot of time with animals the past few weeks. Cal's cake, though not my best work, was unusual to say the least. He informed me months ago that he wanted an "ocean theme" particularly "a shark biting a whale". I told him I'd do my best....

Pictures from google image I used to make the shark and whale in background

Ben with the chinchilla Max

Cal and Seth were brave enough to let the rat on their shoulders...and neck!

It tickled!

The party was really cute. The kids got to play with some of the smaller animals in the birthday room - chinchilla, rats, hamster, rabbit, birds, etc. Then they took them on a tour of the SPCA where the adults went too. One of Cal's friends even went back and adopted a bulldog they saw on the tour! Yikes! I'm hoping the party wasn't directly responsible for this but I fear it was. Anyway, they went back to the birthday room for dog bingo, cake and presents!! Happy 6th Birthday Cal!

Ben went to one of his preschool friend's party where they also had animals from Wildlife Encounters. Yes, in the above picture Ben IS sniffing a skunk. We learned some pretty cool facts and got to see tiny tree frogs, a macaw, a skunk, a tarantula, a HUGE rabbit, a tortoise, an armadillo, among other things I can't even remember at this point in time.

Ben with the tortoise.

The holidays with family was fun as always. Great to be able to DO something on Christmas day since it was on a weekend and not in the middle of the week this year. Unfortunately, we caught the stomach bug that had Ben vomiting right before xmas and Cal ill on xmas eve. I heard when the boys went back to school that whole families were down and out so we were lucky to just have two of the kiddos get it.

We rang in the new year with the uneventful predictability of Olive Garden take out and not staying up until midnight. New Year's day was a little bit of a different story though. Eric decided to get the boys out of my hair so I could sleep in or do whatever I wanted for the first day of 2011...awww...way to start a year out right for me! So he took the boys out to breakfast at Friendly's and then downtown to walk around and check out the cool ice sculptures. From there they proceeded to their very favorite place - the McDonald's playplace. It kind of befuddles me why my children LOVE LOVE LOVE this place. Really it's just some stairs that lead into a not-so-intricate tunnel system and then they come down one of two slides. Really? It's THAT fun? Apparently it is because they'll spend hours there and they'd go every day if they could. So they get there and split a brownie melt and then come home later to go sledding. Once sledding is done, they come in for some hot chocolate and lunch. Promptly after lunch, Cal projectile vomits all over the bathroom. I'm told he tried to get it in the toilet but it literally projected over it. Too much junk food will do that to you.

Anyway, so he's fine. Not sick, just too much gross food. Eric and I proceed to go out that night to see the movie The Fighter (very good by the way). We get home and the babysitter tells us that Cal was complaining that his finger hurt. The back story on his finger is that over winter break we had gone to Fun Zone, a bouncy house type place, and while going down a slide he jammed his finger. This had happened 3 days prior and his finger WAS still swollen so when he woke up at 10pm still saying it hurt I thought well, maybe he should go get it checked out at the ER. What made the decision for me was that the ER wait time was only 25 mins (you can check online!) and the fact that Cal was supposed to go skiing the next day and when I told him he wouldn't be able to if we went to the ER he said that that was ok. SO we spend a good hour and half total to get x-rays and find out it's a sprain. They send us home with a little tape on it. Nice. And that concluded our first day of the year!!

Here are some pictures of sledding in the snow! SNOW!! FINALLY. I think this was on December 23rd that we finally got to go out. It was our one day reprieve from sickness...I guess the universe felt bad since 1) it was the first snow and 2) the kids had been dying to go out in it so everyone was well THAT day. They had SOOO much fun.

Seth was probably most excited about the snow and the one that wanted to stay out the longest!

Nothing new with the dog...just a picture to show you that she is still alive and in fact, still living with us.

YEAR IN REVIEW:

CAL: Kindergarten has been awesome for him this past year. He's making friends, learning, and having so much fun. He's resumed skiing this winter and still loves it. They now want to learn to ice skate! Bakugans and Legos are the newest craze and were the fav holiday gifts.

Famous Last Words: As I give a gift to my neighbor, "Mom, someone GAVE that to you and now you are just going to give it away?!" Note: I did NOT re-gift. And, crying, "No one thinks I'm funny anymore. You only laugh at Ben".

BEN: Admittedly, Ben HAS been rather funny lately. He comes up with the most random thoughts that he says out loud and has a funny little grin/giggle to go with it. You can't help but laugh! He can write most of his letters now and is on the fast-track to reading! He does so well building his little Lego house that I can't help but love those tiny pieces even though they are a logistical nightmare! I think it's been a great year for Ben to develop his own little personality not in the shadow of his brother. He's making strides at "trying" to play with Seth too. Ben, along with the other boys, is currently learning hip hop dance (at home from a video). I tried to upload the video of them dancing but it took too long. Soooo funny though.

Famous Last Words: When fighting with his brother, "Oh yeah, well I can ice skate on one foot!" He's never been ice skating before. That'll show him, huh?

SETH: He continues to be CRAZY. Found out this winter that he loves snow with a passion. He can go out there and plow through it (like a foot and a half of it!) like there was no tomorrow. He even climbed the front steps and jumped off the side into the snow...thought of it all by himself. He's not doing anything new, per say, just trying to keep up with his brothers.

Famous Last Words: We finally figured out that when he sings "Dieeeego" that it isn't some weird imitation of the Diego theme song but his version of "I throw my hands into the air sometimes saying A-O (Diego!)". And I think it's totally adorable that instead of saying mine, he says "this mys" with a lisp :)

KADY: What have I been up to?! Well, I checked and I read a respectable 31 books last year. That averages out to 2.5 a month, not bad! We probably averaged around 50ish movies last year too (thank you netflix). We already started 2011 off with movie theater frenzy and have seen The Fighter and Black Swan (weird but good!) at the box office. I forget how much I love the movies. Anyone remember Super Tuesdays in Marlboro???? We got to see a number of plays and concerts (Dan Zanes for the kids!) throughout the year and I'm hoping we get a good fix in 2011 too!!



In the next week or two we will conclude a major basement renovation. I really thought I had put a lot of time and effort into doing SO much before the project started. But alas, no, thing after thing "came up" and it sucked a lot of my "free/nap" time away. The good news is: It looks fantastic and was totally worth the effort (or at least I hope the guests that sleep down there think so!) and it's almost done. We decided to take a MAJOR break from any other renovations big or small for the next year so that comes as a relief! I'll post pics of the bedroom/bathroom soon. I wanted to wait for the carpet to be put in and the thunder grey toilet to be set :)


This October Eric and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage! Whew! We're hoping to plan a big trip if all the stars align so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


My Frivolous Goals/Resolutions for 2011 are:

• Read a ridiculous amount of books (more than 31)! Goal: 50
• Do some writing...I'm always chastising myself for making excuses...not this year?!??
• I have a little art hobby I'd like to start up (time o time, where for art thou, time?!)
• Play indoor soccer
• FINALLY start AND finish a recipe book that's been in the works, well in my head, and all over different torn out pages for perhaps years now?