Summer 2010, My Golden Age of Blindness

Through Spring, Summer and Fall of 2010, my vision got steadily better as my eye recovered from the Cialis-induced hemorrhage. The retinapathy that started with the PRP treatment advanced, but stopped at the border of the artificial lense put into my eye to fix the cataract. Glasses helped me read again, an ability I’d lost because Dr. God had, without patient consultation, chosen a lense that did not provide any close-up vision. Reading would never be comfortable, but I convinced myself to be grateful that I could do it all.www.kozzi.us.)
Combined with the dark-blind right eye, the loss of peripheral vision rendered me permanently legally blind. Nothing makes up for the loss, but with difficulty, I could function.
The retinapathy in the left eye darkened the vision to a circle, giving me tunnel vision.
Focusing also became a permanent problem. Changes in lighting required a long adjustment time, and angle of light could prove problematic. The artificial lense of the cataract surgery delayed distance refocusing. Change both distance and light at one, and I became pretty useless for a while.
I could drive without too much of a problem. The further away I focused, the wider the opening of the tunnel appeared. At that point, it became easier to drive to the supermarket than to walk around inside it. I could not see anyone who stepped beside me, so when I step to the side, I collide. Refocusing on reading labels to walking down the aisle requires time. I took to getting out of others’ way, letting crowds pass to avoid bumping into people and to maintain some buffer of personal space. The harder I tried to stay out of the way, the testier I got when other people keep getting in mine. That frustration has not eased with time.
At bowling I had to maintain focus on the pins. Checking the scoreboard displays triggered an extreme change in both light and distance that made my next frame suffer. I got in the habit of asking how the game was when each game finished. My bowling seemed to improve for the lack of self distraction.
I looked at the time since the hemorrhage as completely lost time. I worked as fast as I could on my fiction writing and on my other responsibilities. It did not take long to learn that "as fast as I could" fell short of my desires. I concentrated on short stories. Some of those written in 2010 have already seen publication. Publication can take a long time under the best circumstances, so I take great pride in how quickly "Advance Gratitude," "A Pediatrician in Wartime" and "The Thirteenth Day on Kurko" found homes in paper pages. (Shameless plug: those three and other anthologies can be found for purchase on my home site
The other consideration at that time remained medical treatment of the eye. With the eye already a mess, I knew I could not go without close monitoring. I did not wanted the situation to get worse....