Cataracts & Mark’s Closet of Anxieties

Going to the eye doctor has made me anxious since I was a child. I mean, a LOT of things make me anxious but getting my eyes checked always seems riddled with extra layers of worry. I think part of it was that when I was seven years old, my maternal grandmother was diagnosed with cataracts. Or well, cataract. I didn’t know this until years later but she had lost one eye to glaucoma when she was younger. But I remember going with my parents when they took her to the eye doctor. I was in the room when he told Mom that her mother was going to go blind. She was frail and cataract surgery was much rougher back then. She was not a candidate for surgery he said. Mom chose not to tell her then and as her mom lived less than a year after it was just as well she didn’t. But I think my grandmother’s anxiety and then knowing my Mom didn’t tell her mother she was going blind… well I got glasses about a year later and I think it just all went into my closet of anxieties forever after.

So every time I get my eyes checked, I am waiting to exhale and literally talking with the doctor going down the list of family eye maladies to make sure I’m clear.It’s not enough that I took the glaucoma test for instance, I need to hear my eye pressure is actually fine.

Well the last time I got my eyes checked was in 2019. Mom was already well on her way down the dementia trail and had to go with me. She sat in the waiting room where she would periodically forget where we were and start calling my name. By the time we left that afternoon, my nerves were shredded. And then right on the heels of that, the pandemic started, and her dementia worsened as social contact diminished. I just hit the point that I didn’t feel like I had time to deal with my vision and even after she went into the nursing home I put it off.

Now it was clear to me that something was going wrong but the anxiety feedback loop combined with needing to ASK someone to drive me to an eye appointment out of town. I have never been great at asking for help. I would walk over hot lava first most of the time. But living in a rural place, that’s a lot of hot lava to walk to another city. So I put it off and put it off.

Finally I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had the suspicion it was cataracts. My father had his removed about 50 and I was already past that hump in the road by a few years. If I had ever been sure that’s “all” it was, it would have been easier to get moving but what if it was something far worse? But I finally gathered my courage and unloaded all that was going on and asked for help. They will never know how much I appreciate it because as I said my whole psyche recoils at the idea.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat with my collected nerves in an exam room in Macon, Georgia. I had to pay fully out of pocket for that appointment as getting an ophthalmologist in network without waiting for months was not in the cards. But it was worth it to finally get the ball rolling. I do have cataracts. They are both well past the point they should be removed. In fact the right eye has reached the point he can’t properly see the back of the eye and my next appointment is with a retina specialist. He wants them to do some sort of test to verify the back of the eye is alright before moving forward with surgery.

That will be in early November. And until then my anxiety will cycle in and out. He said the back of the left eye was fine and he really doesn’t expect anything to be wrong with the right eye but he wants to verify first. After that, another consultation to determine when the surgeries will be. And yes, we are getting painfully close to the end of the year which is a whole other layer of insurance anxiety.

As things stand with our government standoff, it’s not looking great that I’ll be able to afford my ACA health insurance next year. So I’m anxious if I’ll even get one eye done before the year runs out at this rate. But I’m trying my best to not dwell on that and to hope for the best.

Me Asking For Your Help

Which finally leads me to a plea for help. And I’ve already told you how much I hate asking for help. Asking for a ride is monumental. Asking for money is just.. not something I’m accustomed to doing. But I have a $2000 out of pocket maximum with my current health insurance. And I honestly don’t know where it’s coming from.

I wish there was something more I could say than simply if you read this and you have a few dollars to chip in, I would greatly appreciate it. Not having to wonder how exactly I’m going to pay for my part of this will be one less anxiety in the cavalcade of anxieties I’m facing at the moment. Thanks for considering chipping in and I would also appreciate it if you passed this on to anyone who might be willing and able to help as well.

Here are a few options to help:

• My Venmo @tismark – https://venmo.com/tismark
• My Paypal – https://paypal.me/metisdale
• My Ko-Fi – https://ko-fi.com/marketisdale