Wednesday was 5 weeks since my surgery for a detached retina. Details are in the last two posts.

You think, it’s just an eye so it shouldn’t be that difficult. But it’s just been this week that I am starting to feel like myself again. The first two weeks were head down, or mostly head down and I did exactly nothing except count the hours between eye drops and watch the time go by. The following two weeks I gradually starting doing things, breakfast, laundry, some short nights out to hear music and be with friends (which felt amazing!) but I still wasn’t myself. I was sleeping 10=11 hours a night and napping in the afternoons. My eye still hurt, and it was still swollen and very red.

Maybe it was last Monday. I slept until noon and got up with much less pain in my eye. I was going crazy with no activity or exercise, and I had made plans to get back to the gym on Tuesday. That went really well and I felt good. From everything I have read, it’s still going to be months though. My right eye is amazingly clear, especially for close vision, but it continues to be very distorted and I still have some double vision. The poor retina is mostly nerve tissue which is the slowest to heal. If my eye is still red and inflamed outside, I imagine it is also very inflamed inside. And, now my brain is adapting to getting different information from each eye and learning to put them together into one picture. I also still have that gas bubble in my eye. It is slowly getting smaller and breaking up into multiple bubbles, but it probably will affect my vision as long as it is here.

But, the good news is I am feeling much more like myself. I am still trying to lay low a lot of the time and give my body the rest it demands, but I am tolerating more activity and I’m becoming more interested in doing more than sitting around listening to books and podcasts. Reading is difficult and trying to use both eyes sometimes gives me a headache, but I’m trying to do a little more to give my brain a chance to adapt. I still feel like the laziest person! I know, patience, patience… But, I can see!! What a blessing! I continue to be beyond thankful to my doctor and all the others who have helped me through this.

The report on recovery isn’t the most interesting thing, so I was going to write about other things, like what’s happening in the area, the wildlife we enjoy every day, etc. but it got long so that will be in the next post. Stand by for more…