Turning a Blind Eye

Maybe one day, it'll happen to you,
you know lighting strikes without warning!
Who'll see you struggle and who'll hear you cry,
when everybody there just turns a blind eye?
"Blind Eye," Graham Goble as part of Little River Band
Occasionally, I find or seize advantage in my disability.
Don’t get me wrong. No temporary or fleeting convenience can ever compensate for all I’ve lost. I miss driving. I miss reading. I miss being able to watch a movie. I miss being able to observe people. I miss the clear and colorful world and all its little details that I cannot capture on my own. I miss working in my yard and plowing snow. I miss my independence and self sufficiency, things I worked so hard to develop.
I miss taking the trash out. I still do that when my roommate is not around sometimes, during daylight hours when I can see well enough to het down those thirty-four stairs to the barrels. If he is around, my roommate yells at me for doing it. He’s wrong to do that, but the fact that I have fallen down the stairs carry it out puts shades of gray into that statement. I miss being able to do things and being left alone to do them. Now, many people offer help that while appreciated, would be taken better if it was actually offered rather than forced. The situation of increasingly lost self sufficiency has hit me hardest. I can’t do much, and I used to do so much. I still wake some morning, and before opening my eyes, start telling myself I should do this or that item on long neglected lists. When I finally do open my eyes, I remember why that list of things I :should: do got so long. Despite sporadically failing health over the past year, my father helped me or more accurately did for me a number of things I could not do and some others could not do right.
I have not reverted to seeking every easy way, something I was firmly warned against at the age of 17. Now things are just too hard to get too wrong on my own. I realized last fall that I would have to leave my house. This month’s experiences of the blizzard and the loss of my father have only emphasized that.
When it comes to coping mechanisms, I do actively exploit the advantages of being blind. I got out and tried some shoveling, only to learn I really can’t do it. That’s a hard realization to accept. I can block it out even easier now because I can barely see the contrast between snow covered areas and the street’s bare asphalt. Just looking out the window isn’t enough for me to see; if I avoid a prolonged gaze that gives time for adjustment to changes in light, I can block out that stress rather easily. Out of sight, out of mind.
I stated that I dealt with my father’s death perhaps too well. My poor vision helped that. I could not see him in the casket. I could hear my mother’s reactions, but my disability spared me the sights. This worked with my cold core to keep me unemotional throughout the experience.
I cultivated that disability on that sad day. Even adjustment from eyes closed to eyes open needs time. So I kept closing my eyes and then reopening them to keep the adjustment from happening, to keep a blind eye to things too hurtful to see.

Blocking It Out

Two things have me thinking about the mentor who took me under his wing when I was 17 and helped me find and develop and focus personal strength through my adulthood. The first was a comment on an old post here ("Finally, a Good Doctor") that asked about how I found center for my writing and overcame start of day writer’s block.
The second factor was the February 18 death of my father. This family trauma predictably ushered in a lot of family drama. I handled everything OK, maybe too well. My father and I had our rough periods. Extended family seem to fall short of understanding how I always avoided the list of disowned kids and grandkids. My family, including myself, we are not easy people. I can’t answer how I held on through specific rough times, but in general, the emphasis and a level of blind loyalty to family is something the old mentor specifically developed, sometimes even when he was also saying "You don’t go mentioning me around there." No, I am assuring my readers, the relationship with my mentor was not a form of "Greek apprenticeship."
The issues of my writing center and getting by with my family both stem to the guidance I received when I was 17 to 18. In short, the mentor had told me about negative things, "Block it out." That’s easier said than done. It’s not advice I was able to say "Yeah, sure," about and just do. I developed the skill over years. I’m still a work in progress.
I started writing at age 13 as a means of escapism. Fleeing to space now known as the Sivil Galaxi gave me a refuge when life on earth got to grim. I blocked out the grimness with distractions. I wrote longhand in those pre-PC days and carried a loose leaf notebook anywhere and everywhere. My father had times of direct pride in what I was accomplishing, but little specific encouragement or interest came from family. It’s possible that any interest they would have shown may have invaded my private places. I don’t think my father could understand that escapism aspect; when I was reading Lord of the Rings, he told me he thought only people with problems with reality read that type of thing.
I blocked out the bad things with my writing, with work, and sometimes with music. I block things out long enough to make any situation less stressful, then I deal with it head on. I have found myself both respected and despised for my tendency to be direct, my willingness to meet confrontation and call out bad behavior with some of my own, my knack of saying what other people will only think. From those kernels planted by my old mentor in 1986 and 1987, I did learn and internalize that not everyone can be pleased, and that what others say, think and do doesn’t matter if I am not treating them wrongly. There’s important distinction there; I question myself. I do not get from others or give to myself a blank slate to trample others. I hold to my beliefs and opinions without deeming those who don’t agree as automatically wrong.
I hope that earnest humility and willingness to agree to disagree comes across in the blog. I’ve seen many people’s surprise when they realize that I enforce my ethos (and pathos) only to my own life and maintain the feeling that everyone needs to make their own decisions about their own lives and tolerate everything on the other side of that line drawn in the sand.
I owe most of these unobvious good qualities to someone who helped me out so much in so many ways so long ago. His time was not wasted, and I have tried to live up to those ideals ever since.

Undue Influence

For a year stretching between 1986 and 1987, I was fortunate enough to have a mentor. I worked with him at the long-defunct restaurant The Maple Root Inn, and greatly considered him a father figure. Despite working two jobs and being utterly dedicated to his wife and four kids, he had taken this punk kid under his wing. He provided direction and outlook that was desperately needed. I really needed more than he or anyone could give. I am not a child from a "broken" home, but things were pretty badly shattered and had been for years. I’ve regretted the loss of the mentor but never blamed him and did my best to implement the things he taught. I was lucky to have him. His influence includes balancing loyalties to both myself and the troubled family, fighting my own lazy streak and what was then (if not still now) my crazy streak. I still think I never succumbed to drug addiction or alcoholism due to his influence.
Those coping mechanisms laid out for me so long ago have carried me through my life, particularly with the strength needed to get through these past few years as my eyes and leg have failed me. I had an inherent but inconstant strength, but my old mentor taught me how to tap into it and provided direction.
A lot of people, including some who do not particularly like me, have been amazed and complimentary in how well I have dealt with the disabilities. I credit that strength to the old mentor. I credit the strength to have stood tall and strong through so many things over so many years to the influence of someone I have not seen since 1987.
At http://www.kozzi.us/LongWay.html,
I have posted an essay published in 2006 by Dana Literary Society Online Journal. This essay dealt with a lot of things that have come up over the past month, including family irregularities and vulgarities and the fact that I am living in a very difficult property to manage and maintain at the best of times. The essay made it clear that I relished the challenges of daily life and the little difficulties that reminded me I was alive. That outlook also came from my mentor, who’d asked pointedly, "You have to have everything the easy way?"That challenge adjusted my attitude and energized my efforts. I don’t give up on this because they prove difficult.
That outlook has been invaluable.

Bowling Blind

I am still bowling. I’m blind and need to wear the orthopedic Crow Boot at all times, but I’m still out there trying. The Crow Boot is allowed, but I need to cover it to make sure that I do not introduce foreign objects to the floor as these could pose hazards to others or damage the lanes. I wrap the Crow Boot in a pillow case and secure it with a couple bungee cords. I chose dark pillow cases so I would pick up evidence if anyone was illegally using powder on their shoes.
Bowling is not easy. I’m contending with not being able to see the pins. My teammates tell me what pins remain standing after the first ball. I line myself up by the contrast between lane and gutters and hope for the best.
The Crow Boot is not always stable. The pillowcase can puff out and pose a tripping hazard to myself. My foot does not always feel stable or level inside the boot. I can be misaligned to the lanes and not fully realize it.
Sugar fluctuations plague me even more often. My sugar is inclined to fall suddenly with the onset of activity, and the bowling is the most exerting thing I do in life. Actually, it’s one of the few things I do.
My fourth barrier to success this season was my choice of purchase place for my new ball. I changed only because my blue ball blended in with all the other dark balls on the return rack. I bought a cow print ball just so I could see easily which one was mine. I could have–and should have–gone through the pro shop at the lanes, but I wanted to buy local to me and not in what I figured was a captured audience. I went to Bowler’s Edge in Pawtucket, essentially in my neighborhood. That was a mistake. He ordered the ball and said it should be in next week. He forgot to mention he would be on vacation for two weeks. When, a month later, the ball came in, he ignored my mention of being blind and needing to throw a straight ball and he drilled the finger holes for a hook ball. I certainly won’t be doing business with him again nor would I recommend him to anyone.
I started off lucky this year, but all the various handicaps with me and the ball before it was filled and redrilled played havoc. I was trying to learn to bowl with the Crow Boot, increasing visual impairment and a ball most definitely not reacting to my typical throw. I had plenty of nights where breaking 200 was an impossibility. That’s a 200 total between three games I could not do. My high game was a 157. I had to take time off from both leagues post victrectomy, and seem to be going a little stronger now.
I need of course to acknowledge my teammates in both leagues. Almost all are new teammates this year, and have been accommodating to my gimpiness. I am in less competitive leagues, and while I tremendously miss some prior years’ teammates, I still feel lucky to be bowling with such understanding people.

Eating Crow

I mentioned the orthopedic brace that is a permanent fixture, but neglected to ever cover what it was here. It’s called a Crow Boot. Pictures are readily available through any online search. I could post one here, but considering the blind angle, I decided early on that this would be a text site with no pictures.
The Crow Boot has two halves, upper and lower. It’s made of lightweight but highly durable black plastic and is lined with lightweight foam. When fitted for it originally, they took a cast mold of my leg. They have had to add foam as the Charcot swelling on the leg decreased. My foot goes into the lower half. The upper half then interlocks and is held in place with velcro.
The Crow Boot is needed because of the Charcot Foot. As it turned out, prednisone being dropped in my eye post retina reattachment went to work on the swelling of the Charcot Foot. When I had temporarily discontinued the prednisone, the foot swelled back up worse than before. My underlying injury seems to have been tendon damage rather than a broken bone, and the foot thickly swelled up to and even slightly beyond the knee. This swelling reduced circulation already naturally impeded by more than 35 years of diabetes. Oddly enough, as long as I kept exerting and moving I was fine. When I truly stayed off the foot–after last May’s development of a toes infection also triggered by the lack of circulation–the ankle collapsed. The central bone in the ankle, the one on which the tibia’s cupped end sits, and the inner part of the heel bone soften, collapsed and twisted. My right leg is now about a half inch shorter than the left.
The Crow Boot does nothing directly for any aspect of Charcot Foot. It compensates for the structural collapse and weakness that is a permanent disability.
The Crow boot immobilizes the ankle to make sure I cannot do further damage to myself. It also diverts weight from the ankle to the ball of the foot or the upper calf. It has a lifter to compensate for the different leg lengths.
I wear the Crow Boot when not in bed or in the shower. Even to get up in the middle of the night for a leak or a snack, I need to put the Crow Boot on. I’m still living in a place with way too many stairs for a blind guy with a bad leg.
Without the boot, I would need crutches. Times when I do "cheat" and use neither the boot nor the crutches leave me feeling the error for a few days.
I do not complain about the boot. I’d be able to marginally get around on crutches, but all these stairs would be a lot more difficult, and I would not be able to bowl. The Crow Boot is bulky, and on my right foot, so I probably would not be able to drive with it due to pedal spacing, but driving was lost a half year before due to the eyesight. The boot is inflexible at the ankle and sole, so even slight bumps or lumps in a smooth surface can make me feel like I am about to fall over.
When I say I am limping along, I mean that literally. Blind eyes and a bad leg is an especially bad combination.

Golden Starches

In December’s diet for/not for diabetic series, I did talk about the three basic things I never eat. There’s a fourth, in a broad category defined by brand. That is McDonald’s.
Maybe it was easier for me to stay away from McDonald’s than it would be for most people because I detest onions in all forms. That’s a plus for me as a diabetic.
My parents noticed since the onset of my diabetes that McDonald’s always triggered high sugar surges no matter what was eaten. Burger King, Burger Chef, and Dairy Queen did not have this effect even with directly comparable meals.
As an adult I noticed that a McDonald’s breakfast did not seem to trigger such high sugars, but I could never figure out the specifics. I thought maybe they added sugar to their frying oils or to the grills themselves. Maybe fries had a sugar coating that leaked into the fryers.
I learned more recently the direct cause. A former manager who was retired due to disabling complications of his Type 2 diabetes spilled the beans.
The sickness uniformly inflicted on diabetics by McDonald’s food is directly related to all the health problems caused by the chain’s food. The secret is not within the fries and oil or meat. It was fully compatible to why the Egg McMuffins never seemed to bother me.
McDonald’s sandwich bread is more this composite of sugar, old-time lard, sesame seeds and just enough wheat for the alien product to be classified as bread. There’s some exaggeration in the way I wrote that for attempted comic delivery, but the general content is accurate enough. The sandwiches may have the taste you want, but eating anything on the luncheon rolls is traitorous to the diabetic body.
The nature of McDonald’s bread-type products explains the sugar spiking tendencies, the calorie content and the cholesterol costs.
Neither Burger King nor Wendy’s ever had such severe effects on me. I state this as a diabetic who always managed his condition by feel, not by sugar numbers. McDonald’s always made me feel unwell while its competitors did not.
I’ve avoided most fast food whenever possible. I lean towards Subway whenever lunch on the run was something of a necessity. The alternatives are just healthier and the vegetables more diverse.
That does not mean I’ve been perfect, but that I choose healthy options whenever possible or productive. If I need a boost before bowling, I am inclined to snatch a couple Burger King cheeseburgers. The food itself does not overwhelm me as McDonald’s will, and Wendy’s burgers are usually dressed with mayonnaise rather than sugar-rich ketchup. When I stop for those burgers, I am eating for the sugar rather than enjoyment. Burger King burgers seem to have gotten smaller yet again.
I do not view McDonald’s as a viable choice under any circumstances.

Impaired Driving

For years, I drove despite one eye total blindness.
I did not drive overmuch. I bought the jeep Wrangler in late 2005 with 115,000 miles and sold it in December 2012 with about 145,000 miles. I was mostly local and worked out of my house and mostly in my own neighborhood. I planned shopping of all sorts for one day per week and generally gassed up to a full tank on that day, need it or not. Less than once a month I would make a strip to New Hampshire or Southern Maine on business for an antique dealer for whom I worked.
I had no accidents. Certainly other will find this post via search engines when their driving is "prohibited" when they develop problems in one eye. Here’s some tips and cautions.
Always remember that everyone assumes you can see them. You must be a defensive driver who anticipates everyone else’s stupidity.
The people in your life will always have reservations, concerns, and opposition to your driving. To get angry about this is to be angry that they care.
Your field of vision is reduced on the side you cannot see out of, so you must compensate for that. My blind eye was on the right. I stopped making left hand turns at uncontrolled intersections, which require a full range of vision. I’d turn right, then make a safe left hand turn and circle the next block. The safety far outweighed the inconvenience. Passengers who objected to the roundabout ways were asked if they would prefer to walk.
I still tended to be a cowboy when I knew the immediate area was free of hazards. This could make people who knew I had eye difficulties very nervous.
Pedestrians will always be a problem, and if you can’t see perfectly, you are extremely likely to miss some spots when washing their blood from your fenders. When driving through parking areas, drive slowly and with the destination building on the side of your good eye. Better yet, drive on the accessway further away from the building. Again, people will always assume you see them.
Park in what are called "sprews." A sprew is a spot that you drive into the bumper-to-bumper adjoining spot and pull through to the next. When you leave, you can pull straight out rather than have to back into the accessway where drivers can carelessly rush you and pedestrians can walk behind you. This means you can’t often park close to the building, but the ease in getting out again was always worth this sacrifice to me.
Don’t resume driving until you’ve had time to get used to the missing depth perception. Depth perception tends to be less important from four to six feet away as your brain will fill in the differences. It will take time to get used to and develop those "automatic translations."
And the basic stuff that applies to all drivers becomes even more crucial. Don’t drive overtired, after any alcohol or on any new meds. Don’t drive with distractions. Need to use the cell phone? Pull over.

The One Eye Plow Guy

My right eye went dark in 2003. I failed to leave a cornea abrasion covered long enough. The eye looked around the obstruction. The muscles pulled to the outside and peeled the retina off the back of the eye. Diabetic retinapathy, opportunistic of other problems.
I started plowing in 2006, in part because other peoples’ unreliability had crossed all acceptable lines. The city had thoroughly plowed me in, not just with a massive plow ridge, but by moving the snow from the main street to the dead-end access that led to my parking. I had a contractor plowing, but he vacationed to Florida every February. I have not driven since October 2011 but only sold the jeep two months ago. I’m feeling that loss and it triggers feelings of uselessness and helplessness via things outside my control. These things are issues I had handled after experiencing them but have come full circle.
I can only accept limitations. I can only try to impress those genuine limitations on others. A blind guy with a bad leg and reliance on an orthopedic boot brace cannot go shovel someone else’s car out.
I was good at the plowing. The first snowfall after I obtained the Jeep Wrangler was a minor but complicated storm. An inch of snow fell, then turned to rain. The precipitation stopped when a cold front blew in and froze the slush. Wanting to practice and play with the new equipment, I plowed the properties I managed. The tenants were thrilled. Their home lots were bare dry pavement while everywhere else, work, commercial establishments and most municipal streets, were slicked over with layers of ice that remained for days.
I no longer have the equipment to do that because I am no longer equipped to operate the equipment. I did not stop driving because someone made me, or because I had gotten into a serious accident because I was driving past the time I should have been. I stopped on my own because I didn’t want to kill myself or someone else.
Medications combine with insulin fluctuations to trigger periods of vertigo. I have a hard enough time moving and standing without carrying things when the ground is smooth and dry. Snowstorms had been my active times since 2006, and also periods of productive alone time. I miss those aspects. I would prefer to be able to continue some of them, but that’s now physically possible for me any longer. There’s a negative emotional charge to the entire situation for me.
A Wrangler is one of the shortest vehicles that can handle a plow (and I still burned out two transmissions.) Mine was equipped with the narrowest plow blade available. I could get into tight areas despite the fact that my field of vision was reduced and I lacked depth perception. I really was performing beyond my physical capabilities
Those physical capabilities are further diminished now, permanently. I am learning to accept that. Can others do the same?

Snowblind!

I write from Providence, Rhode Island. I am told by roommate and TV media that everything out there is covered by some 20 inches of snow. I can’t see for myself.
It’s not just that basic fact that depresses me. I used to drive a Jeep Wrangler equipped with a plow rig. I never went out and hustled work, but used the truck to maintain the buildings I managed. I picked up occasional local jobs, but the purpose of owning the rig from the beginning was to be self sufficient. In 2005, the city ran out of space to put the snow on the main street and had plowed in the side street that serves as only access to the parking.
I sold the Jeep and plow rig last December, long after I should have. I had last driven it in October 2011.
There’s no self sufficiency left, for the storm or the property management or much of anything else. Things I was real familiar with I can still do. That list grows short. The combination of blind eyes and structurally deficient leg is a particularly bad one. I can’t really shovel 3 inches of light and fluffy snow. Twenty inches of the wet and heavy stuff is beyond me. I know that. I’m not writing it to whine or solicit help, but to add a layer of acceptance to my condition. Like not selling the Jeep for fourteen months after I could last drive it, sometimes the coping mechanism works slower than "it should."
The more valuable analogy for this post is the blizzard blinding white out. My eyes are like that all the time, although the level varies. Car visibility is measured in quarter miles. My visibility is measured in feet, but the cause and effect are identical. If there’s too much gunk between you and what you’re looking at, you just can’t see it.

The Coping Mechanism

I am permanently blind, not from the Cialis-induced vitreous hemorrhage, but because of the PRP laser treatment inflicted by Dr. Michael O’Brien of Koch Eye Associates. I think his employer is as much to blame as Koch has advertised for PRP patients rather than eye tests to see if PRP treatment is prudent for specific patients.
But I still see it as my own fault for letting myself be scared into it. "O’Brien had said, "You’re probably right about the Cialis, but what if you’re not?"
Yes, three years later I remain angry and bitter about this, and other massive "wrongness" from the Koch offices and associates.
I suppress the anger and fight the negativity on a daily basis. Some days don’t succeed as well as others. This is a pattern that has enshrouded me for my entire life. I won’t get into why that’s so. Who wants to hear self pitying whining?
I’ve lost maybe eighty percent of my life to this, and maybe more. Nothing is the same and everything is different, every function, every relationship.
My blindness is legal blindness. The left eye is not dark, just greatly impaired by a few different factors. As long as I have that bit of vision left, as long as I can still find the fridge and the toilet and the keyboard, I can make the most out of what I have left.
I have to content myself with that.
I will content myself with that.

Rosy Lenses

The online magazine Breath and Shadow is carrying my story "Through Rose Colored Lenses" in their current Winter 2013 issue.
My friend who is most involved in my writing was surprised. He thought this story was non-fiction, so was a bit surprised by the content.
I wrote the story in 2010, targeting for an anthology about life in the near future. I was disappointed that the editor did not take the story. He was working for a small time publisher I had worked with. I didn’t take the rejection personally, but some factors added to the feeling of rejection. I had read a bit of work by that editor and thought the edge was right, and that the story worked on at least two interpretive themes of the anthology’s proposed title.
A rarity for me, I followed the project. I discovered another minor published story by the editor and read that. It eased me into an appraisal that the editor was what I deem a Harlan Ellison Wannabe; failing that in writing he was turning to editing. When the contents were announced, I felt a little bad for the publisher for having financed a project that was almost exclusively composed of stories by friends of the editors. Only one of the writers in the anthology had been written by someone now personally known by the editor on some level. I wasn’t angry by the circumstances, but they left a sour taste in my mouth. I shelved the story for two years. The publisher has printed at least one other story by me since then.
Things worked out well enough. Breath and Shadow pays more than the anthology, and they were only the second submission of the story.
Those who know me well enough will recognize by many aspects that the narrator of "Through Rose Colored Lenses" is not me. The story was inspired by the things that set my disabling circumstances in motion, but is not really about them. It’s a satire on the pharmaceutical monopoly and its machinations.
The story’s narrator pretty much gave up while I’ve been stubbornly fighting on.
The story can be read at http://www.abilitymaine.org/breath/win13f.html
It’s open online, a free read courtesy of Breath and Shadow.

Adjusting

I’m coping OK. Not perfectly, but OK, and many people in my life think I have been dealing with the blindness and then the Charcot foot better than they or most people could.
What I miss most and have accepted as unrecoverable is the ability to read. This specific handicap should not have happened. When being "prepared" for cataract surgery, I should have been told about lense options, as well as the risk factors to diabetic retinapathy. I was warned of neither. Dr. Paul Negrey of Koch Eye Associates chose a far-sighted lense for me. This killed my close vision. Glasses greater than 6.0 magnification–twice the strength of what is allowed to be sold as over-the-counter reading glasses here in Rhode Island–still don’t allow comfortable reading.
This is frustrating enough in things I can do–usually–such as figuring out what kind of soup is in an unopened can by recognizing word patterns and shapes and making an effort to remember what varieties I bought in different brands.
I can read the computer only with a series of enhancement. Reliance on a magnifying mouse as one of those enhancements has me unable to see an entire web page as a whole. Before the 2009 Cialis-triggered catastrophe, I had done professional web design. Now I am an even better judge of poor design and navigation. The teenagers and twenty-somethings who lead the field don’t factor in reduced or handicapped vision needs when promoting hover menus, small typefaces and busy layouts.
Audio books can replace novel reading, to certain extent. Rhode Island does have a great interlibrary loan system. I’ve gone through all of Kate Wilhelm’s Barbara Holloway mysteries and Sue Grafton’s alphabet. I’m pushing through Lawrence Block’s body of work with considerable enjoyment. But classics can be problematic because there’s no way to glance over the boring parts.
My unread home library consists mostly of out of print classic science fiction. Not a lot of this is available in audio.
I most miss what had been my greatest source of "childish" escapism, comic books. My interest had been waning for years, but at the time of the vitreous hemorrhage, my long-time favorite Alpha Flight saw publication of a new 8-issue series. My eyesight continued to decline and I was not able to read beyond the third issue. Now I have trouble even discerning covers and logos
Worst, on the most personal level, I have been unable to read the hard-copy versions of the anthologies that have published my work in the past few years. I can recognize the shape of my name in print, and have to content myself with that.
I’m adjusting well, but it’s not always easy.