Look for a Minute Through My Eyes

I am notorious for jumbling my words when I talk. Something I think faster than I speak – hard to believe, I know. I am usually very articulate, but something I just get so darn excited! I do the same thing when I type – I have a tendency to leave out important words. I have also been known to transpose the first letter of 2 words. For example, it is not uncommon for me to say “Lakob and Jisa” when I mean to say, “Jakob and Lisa.” As if it wasn’t bad enough to speak and write like I'm drunk, now I read like I am drunk...

At 9 weeks after surgery my eyes were still pretty messed up. It’s hard to explain, but I will try. I have edema in my right eye – which means there is fluid in my retina. This is annoying. It’s like looking through water – all the time. The central vision in my left eye is OK – which makes up for the right. Though I do have dark spots still. When I say dark spots, I mean it is like looking through a screen. Not blurry, necessarily, just not right. Lines are not straight – they are jagged. This is not something glasses can fix. For the most part I can see. Reading is doable, but a little trying. For example, here is a sentence:

The cat jumped over the moon.

Yes, this is my current reading level… This is how I see the sentence:

Th ct jumed ovr thm on.

Weird, huh? Luckily, the mind sees what it wants to see – and what it knows - so while it might take me a little longer to read, I can, for all intents and purposes, read words. It gets a little difficult when looking at numbers. Because my mind doesn’t know what a phone number is supposed to be, for example. It takes a little patience and a lot of eye movement to read a phone number – or my back account balance. But luckily my account balance isn’t 10 digits… Or unluckily. I’m not sure which at this point…

But the most significant thing I am lacking is my peripheral vision – of which I have none. Sit down at your desk at work and look straight ahead and you’ll notice “out of the corner of your eye” your coworkers on either side of you. I do not see this. I do not have a “corner of my eye.” Well, I do, but it’s more in the front. This is the main reason I cannot drive. Apparently you have to see 90 degrees in each eye to drive. I don’t know about you, but I do not remember ANYONE checking this at the DMV when I got my license. Of course, I didn’t go to the DMV, I went to the Secretary of State Office because that is where we go in Michigan, but I digress. Now sit at your computer and look straight ahead and you’ll notice your hands on your keyboard. I, sadly, do not see mine. I also cannot see the tip of my nose – something I have been looking at for most of my life – and I kind of miss it.

Tomorrow I will post about some instances when peripheral vision is good to have. But for now, forgive any typos, I’m not the best reader.

(July 2, 2009)