Side effects of getting healthier

My brain is still not at 80% of what it was before the heart attack.  I keep messing up my appointment times, and even though I put them on my calendar, and look at it before going to sleep and when I wake up,  I keep entering dates and times wrong a lot. I have a lot of anxiety because of that.

Like my appointment for the eye exam was listed today on the calendar, but it was also listed for next week. And it was supposed to be next week. But since I went there today, they squeezed me in and did a couple of tests.  I passed and don't have to go back for 6 more months. My numbers in the glaucoma pressure test have gone down. Perhaps due to the change in blood pressure medications I'm now on. Whoopee.

I'm doing a lot of tracking. "Tracking" means keeping a food diary, as well as an exercise one, and how supported I feel, and something else that I can't remember! (Maybe something about stress and meditation.) This is to live in a different lifestyle than pre-heart attack. The Ornish program with its fourfold approach is quite sweeping. I'm going to be giving some of my food away that I thought was pretty ok to have. Dry roasted peanuts, peanut butter and jelly, for example. This diet is not only vegetarian but low fat. So those nice 7 grams of fat per serving of pure little peanuts is out.

I can have 9 grams of fat per day. Whew. And I'm beginning to see that this is how I'll be living the rest of my life. If I want to reverse the heart disease which I accumulated by the way I used to live. The answer is yes, and a commitment that is surprisingly hard to start. I'm glad I go twice a week to the program and they help with my struggles for a total of 9 weeks.

Today's Quote:

If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.

ROBIN WALL KIMMERER

Eye exam

So my annual eye exam was yesterday.

Usually this is a breeze, but there was some concern about my right eye.  It continues to not test into the 20-20 range.  It's about 20-25 according to Dr. Smith.  I really wish it would behave.  I came in with 4 concerns, and most of them couldn't be solved by new glasses.

First my present frames don't have a nose-bud setup, so they sit right on my nose.  I didn't know that would be a problem, but it means they also sit on my cheeks when I'm lying down. I only lie down to read before going to sleep, but inevitably my cheeks leave some skin oil on the glasses, and that means cleaning them off several times when I'm trying to get sleepy.  So to solve that, I'm going back to my previous frames with nose-buds.

Next was my peripheral vision problem, which I've blamed on the glasses.  Not so, said Dr. Smith. I've got droopy eyelids, and they are worse on the right eye.  Well, yesterday I was surprised to see how much droop I had.  I hadn't noticed in my latest photo at all. But that's cause my eyes are crinkled up with a smile.  So I took a selfie while waiting for my eyes to dilate at the optometrist's office.  Dr. Smith said they weren't bad enough to need surgery, but sometime down the line I might consider that.

Last week smiling.

 This week checking my eyelid droop.

Later at the auto parts place when I got new wiper blades (raining) I tried raising my eyebrows.  Doesn't help much.  But my pupils are still dilated!

Anyway, there were a couple of other problems, which I forgot by the end of the exam when she said my glaucoma test showed a raised pressure level in the right eye.  Poor right eye, at least it still works.

But the reason I'm giving all this information (I know, who really cares) is that I'm approaching a time of having problems due to cataracts growing slowly, but they aren't yet operable.  So I'll continue to have night vision problems (and can't read the Jeopardy questions without their having halos around the letters on TV) until they reach a stage where they are really bad, and thus can have surgery.

Same with the glaucoma pressure.  I need to be monitored more often than once a year, so am going back in 6 months.  But it's not enough to do anything else about, yet.

This body will be almost 77 when I go back in August.

I'm so glad it still walks around ok, though my knees frequently go ouch when going down the porch steps.  I haven't fallen in years (knock on wood!)  If it weren't for frequently coughing till I gasp for breath, I'd say I'm doing fine.  I think I'll say that anyway.  I know there are women my age who could run circles around me. And there are some who are having more problems.  So I'm grateful for the condition my condition is in.