Weeks fifteen and sixteen are behind us now. They’ve been weeks of transformations, if not for me personally — seems that the status quo is holding, and I suppose that’s good — but for the things in my life.

My bike now sports its new handlebar tape. While there’s some pink in the tape, there’s not enough to be confused with what tried to take me out. Mostly, what you see is black. It has changed the look of my bike. Maybe it makes it look as evil as the bike must be, to have attacked the way it did. (although I’m still holding out hope for demon possession or voodoo being the cause.)

It was my first time wrapping handlebars. I think I did okay. I think I’d have done better, except my road bike has this cool feature: a second set of hand brakes up on top of the handlebars. This is super useful when I want to sit upright and don’t need to change gears but want the brakes near to hand. (Go figure someone wants their brakes handy.)

And my furniture has been shifted around, thanks to a birthday gift. The old couch is in the basement, with more to follow. New stuff is arriving in dibs and dabs and hopefully without holes, at least for rounds two and three. Too late for round one.

If you missed it, Women’s Day featured me as one of Ten Real Women Open Up About How They Make Money Working From Home. The link will take you to the page about me, but take a few minutes to look at them all. Interesting group I’m part of. Pretty darn cool.

So what’s all this got to do with writing? This is a #SaysTheEditor post, after all.

Well, just that a few weeks ago, the only change I saw on the horizon was the handlebar tape. When my sister and I ripped the old pink tape off, I knew I wanted new furniture. Knew I needed it. Didn’t expect to have the funds so quickly. (That $60 an hour in the interview sounds good until you look at the reality and how my time is divided up and accounted for!) Didn’t expect to find the furniture on my first real trip to a store. I mean, I was only killing time, gathering intel, learning…

And that’s how transformation affects your writing. When you are open to letting the story (or life) take you where you need to go, where it needs to take you, you find… new possibilities. New horizons. New furniture!

The pantsters — those of us who write by the seat of our pants — are all nodding sagely. We get this. We live it. We open up a document, introduce some characters, and sit back and see where it’ll take us. We’re all about these moments that wind up being story transformations. “But the book wasn’t supposed to be about you, minor character!” we’ll howl and try to fight the minor character who has seized control. But even as we do, we know it’s futile. Our story’s transformed.

But you plotters? (and one of my upcoming books was written to an outline, so maybe I’m one of you now, too?) It’s a harder thing. Plotters have a tighter control on their stories and their characters. At first sign of that minor character and his or her contemplation of a coup, the plotter nudges them back in line. If that doesn’t work, they make promises: behave in this one and the next one’s all about you.

Still not working? They chuck the character to the curb. Figuratively speaking.

This is both good and bad. Plotters sometimes miss the beauty of finding a better story. They miss the shock, the frustration, the process of coming to accept the story’s transformation. Yes, it’s a process. And like most processes, even the familiar ones, it’s a learning experience.

But so is the discipline of sticking to your plot, of staying focused on the story you sat down intending to write. Maybe when you don’t deviate from your outline, the transformations can still happen. They’re just more subtle. The author has to seek them out and maybe they’re not on a big, universal level. Maybe the discovery is in the small stuff, like how the new handlebar tape feels under hands that are still a bit unsteady on this particular bike. Maybe the transformation that happens is just subtle enough to make the author a bit uncertain at first. Like poking a toe into a pond to gauge how cold the water is.

Us pantsters miss out on this part of the writing process. Maybe that lack of discipline actually winds up hurting our attempts to write a strong story. Maybe we miss the subtle stuff.

I’m not sure, so chime in with your experiences in the comments. Pantster? Plotter? What have been your biggest transformations in your fiction?

Fess up. I’m all ears. Relaxing in my new chair-and-a-half, but all ears.

The Thursday running up to Week Fourteen hit me hard. Really hard. Like: three naps in one day hard.

Healing is like this. It’s tricky stuff, if you think about it.

I’ve had a million and three orthopedic injuries. Usually, by week 14, you’re out of the cast, if there was one, into the brace, and deep into rehab (or, if you’re me, you’ve finally admitted defeat and been to see the doctor). There’s some sort of progress you can measure, be it number of appointments or number of reps, or even pain-free days.

Eye injuries aren’t like that. Not even close. And so, being in the middle of the healing process is that much harder.

It reminds me of the drafting progress, when writing that bad (or sloppy or whatever you’d like to call it) first draft turns into less writing and more slogging through. When all you can do is keep putting foot in front of foot, word in front of word.

This is the time to give yourself permission to do what it takes. Three naps. Write absolute garbage. Write more garbage. Take another nap. Keep on slogging through.

The only way to reach the end is to pass through the middle. It really and truly is.

The good news is that for writers, there’s this magic process called revision, where you can erase all signs of slogging through. This is why writing is a craft, folks. You get to reshape, modify, perfect your words, your ideas, your characterization, your plot points, your tension. You get a do-over, as many as you think you need. And this is a good. Putting in the hard hours, taking a walk to chew over a turn of phrase, changing things, asking, “What if this happens instead?” or “What do you mean that’s Tom who does that, not Harry?”

In this, writing’s got one up on healing. Because when healing, all I can do is take another nap. And while it may be good for the body, it’s hard to quantify in notes to a client, in revisions of my own fiction.

It’s hard, this slogging through. No one said it was easy… but then again, aren’t the best things in life the things you work hardest to obtain?

Take a nap. Write garbage. Keep on slogging through.

With a respectful nod to Seether…

All I really want is something beautiful to say

Most of us grow up with that old sticks and stones maxim. As kids, we like it. It’s our defense against bullies and the mean kids and situations. It gives us a sense of power and a coating of teflon.

I was a kid who needed that teflon.

I was also a kid who grew up to be a wordsmith. I know that words can never hurt me simply isn’t true. Words can hurt. Sometimes, words do hurt.

Take last night, for example. Someone I hadn’t seen since before the accident called across a crowded room, “Hey, where’s your eye patch?”

“There never was one,” I said.

She kept going. I kept repeating the phrase.

She thought she was funny.

I … can’t say as how I agreed.

Keep me dumb, keep me paralyzed
Why try swimming? I’m drowning in fable
You’re not that saint that you externalize
You’re not anything at all

Now, here’s the thing. I had a client who made eye patch jokes… twelve weeks ago. A good friend in Texas who suggested I wear a gorgeous scarf she’d sent me years ago because it would match the patch… twelve weeks ago. Hell, even my mother made a joke about wearing an eye patch… seven weeks ago.

And the first and third were jokes, asked by people who’d checked in with me from time to time before they’d let ’em rip. Lord knows, I’ve made plenty of jokes myself about this whole thing. My favorite still remains the “Just like riding a bike. Oh, wait. We all know what happened last time I rode a bike” that I left on a friend’s Facebook wall after she discovered that after ten or more years, she still remembered how to roller skate.

The second? My friend in Texas? She truly didn’t know. And we had an absolutely fascinating discussion about the elegance and brutality of modern medicine. We theorized why I didn’t have a patch, or what circumstances might have occurred that would have resulted in having one. We talked about it. Yeah, we probably joked, too. I like to joke.

Last night? Wasn’t a joke.

That’s because this woman is someone in my community. She has my phone numbers. She knows where I live. We have shared parties and rituals. We have watched each other’s kids grow up.

She is someone I’d reached out to when the accident first happened, asking if she could help.

I probably don’t need to tell you what she said.

And last night, she was looking at me as I stood near my son. I had my new glasses on. People had been telling me through the evening that they couldn’t tell anything was wrong with my eye until I looked to my left, and then they could see it’s still pretty red, thirteen weeks later. One dad had commented that I’d been a regular at this, our weekly meeting place, and then I’d stopped showing up, and now I was back again. Was I okay? Had something happened?

So I told him the story. That I almost lost my eye. That I shouldn’t have vision.

That I have both.

That I am one lucky woman.

It’s all so playful when you demonize
To spit out the hateful, you’re willing and able
Your words are weapons of the terrified
You’re nothing in my world

And then her. Repeated demands to know where my eye patch was.

In front of my friends, my community.

In front of my son.

Say, “Can you help me?” right before the fall
Take what you can and leave me to the wolves

It’s been over thirteen weeks. I still wake up at night, scared that I’ve lost my vision; this is where the PTSD about the whole thing seems to lurk. Cloudy days are stressful days; when it’s not bright and sunny, my eye feels swollen — even though it’s not — and things are darker. Walking out of a well-lit area (like my family room) into a darkened area (like going up the stairs without turning the hall light on)? It’s like walking into a cave at first. It takes a bit longer to adjust. Zombie apocalypse? I am so toast.

In other words: I have vision, but it’s not perfect. The new glasses, with the lens that’s thicker than you can get your mind around, help.

My vision was perfect enough, though, that I could see this woman, across a room that was becoming more crowded as we drew closer to dismissal time, continue to make jokes. About me. About what I’d been through. She was just doing it softly enough that I couldn’t hear her.

I wanted to ask if she knew I could read her lips.

But I didn’t think she was succeeding in diminshing me at all. Nope. I looked at her, and I thought that I had been through so much in the past thirteen weeks (and three days) — and she didn’t care a whit to check on me once.

I thought that I continue to stop multiple times a day and say a silent thank you for my vision. That I look around and appreciate the way things look. The sharp lines of a tree that hasn’t yet blossomed or opened its buds. An angry storm, snow on the ground, the obnoxious shirt my son thinks is funny that I keep waiting for phone calls from school about. I was grateful when I got up at 4:15 in the morning last week to put my daughter on a bus for a school field trip, and that I didn’t have to sit in a dark living room with her and wait for someone to pitch in, help out, and give her a ride while I stayed home, acutely aware that life was passing by as I sat inside and healed.

And I thought that this woman was too… whatever… to realize the value in any of it.

That yeah, her words were weapons. Except…

They missed the mark.

All I really want is something beautiful to say
To never fade away
I wanna live forever

Funny how much better I’m seeing the world these days, as I wait for my vision to “resolve” (whatever that means; it’s the surgeon’s term) and I switch pairs of glasses depending on what I’m looking at, as the cataract grows and my eye heals and as I learn to live with a new reality, the outcome of which remains anyone’s guess.

Again, thanks to Seether for the amazing lyrics which may or may not fit, but suit my mood and give my roiling emotions a safe outlet. I am amused that the name of their new album is “Isolate and Medicate.”

April’s my favorite month, so maybe we’ll forgive it for starting on a Friday, meaning that today, Saturday, is the second.

The last time a month started on a Friday was January. Which meant that Saturday was the second.

Thirteen weeks, folks. Thirteen weeks.

My new glasses arrived, and I’ve got better — although not perfect — distance vision. Strangely, up close got worse with these new lenses. Weird. But… getting it right, I’m told, is going to be the equivalent of hitting a moving target. My vision will change, the surgeon said. It will, he said, resolve, although now that I am in the middle of the resolution, I realize I have no idea what that actually means.

I’m not even sure I should care. I mean, the odds were ever in the favor of losing my sight, if not my eye entirely. The fact that I can see things out of both eyes is, as far as I’m concerned, a blessing, and it’s not uncommon for me to pause and give a silent thanks for whatever it is I’m looking at. Sometimes, whatever it is I’m looking at is viewed only through my right eye, as I like to close my left and see how good or bad the right one currently is. I can see, and that’s something pretty big and even more special.

And yes, as the weather has improved, I’ve abandoned the walks but not the yoga (hey, it feels good) in favor of my bicycle. Right now, I’m only riding my mountain bike. The road bike still doesn’t have new handlebar tape yet, although a trip to REI to pick up an online order solved the issue of not having tape on hand. So until the tape goes on and I move the bike out of the basement, where it’s been for the past thirteen weeks, I’m on the mountain bike.

It’s probably just as well that I am. My mountain bike is old. Circa 1996, which is when I moved into my home. It doesn’t have shocks, it doesn’t have disc brakes, the frame is crazy heavy. And it’s that last part that’s important. The frame is heavy. I feel like I have something substantial under me, unlike my light-as-anything road bike. And I sit more upright on it, too. It feels easier to see the world — well, my street — in this position even though it’s harder to move up the hill I live on.

I texted my sister after my first ride. I have just proven I can ride a bike and not wind up in the ER, I said to her. She understood.

Understanding is a funny thing, isn’t it? It’s hard to be angry at people who try to be considerate, but when I realized I’d been excluded from a promotional event that I’ve done in the past and had a super time with, I was heartbroken. Every time I see something about it in any of my feeds, I cry a little bit. Really, folks… ASK. Don’t assume. Ask. I’m glad to chat, glad to tell you where I am, glad to join in. And glad to work on your manuscript, too, although April is starting to fill up. Book your dates now.

One last note… it’s April, and April is my birthday month, and that means I like to release a book so we can all celebrate, since my favorite present of all time is book royalties. That definitely isn’t happening; I have two in progress and a third that is percolating away in my brain. I’d like to release them real close to each other once they are done, and I’ll be hiring a PR firm or two for them, as well (anyone do PR specifically in Pittsburgh? THAT is what I most need), so we’ll just have to celebrate my birthday another month.

Of course, if you’re so inclined, you can get me one or two of these. That’d make for a spiffy birthday present, too — especially if you accompany me to the field for a game… or two.

Happy April 2. Another unassuming day if there ever was one. But pardon me if I skip the bike ride today.

We’ve all seen the derogatory comments about self-published books. How poor the quality is. Bad grammar. Poorly copy edited. Needs an overall editor. Facts are wrong.

Over and over, I’ve watched the anti-self-pubbed crowd turn up their noses at self-published books, claiming these are the reasons no one should ever align themselves with that drek. Getting a real book deal means you’re automatically lifted above the unwashed masses. It’s proof of excellence.

Stick a sock in it and get your nose out of the air.

I’m reading a book published by a relatively new imprint of one of the oldest, most well-respected houses out there. I’ve met the head editor back in the days when I was doing the author circuit. She may even recall my own name.

And this book is a total embarrassment.

The person who drives a cab? CABBIE. Even my teens got that right when I asked them.

Uber? Is a prefix. As in uber-bad. As in you don’t have to be an uber-editor to get this one in your sleep.

The book is a sports romance, and I’ve been reading a lot of them lately. This one’s a hockey romance, in fact. A sport I used to play. A sport I continue to follow, albeit not as closely as I once did. So yeah, I can pick up on the facts that are wrong, and the facts that are being fudged so the author looks like she knows what she’s talking about.

The storyline is poorly done. I keep thinking, “Okay, now we’re in the part of the book where we’ll deal with X issue.” — it should be integrated, and it should be seamless. There shouldn’t be parts of the book devoted to issues.

The timeline is fuzzy. I’m not sure at any point how much time has passed, both since the beginning of the book and in relation to past events (see next paragraph). This is an easy fix! The author (and editor) should work from a timeline that clearly illustrates this.

The male lead has some serious issues. He goes to the cemetery to visit his dead daughter. Okay, fine. We’ve heard in spades how much he misses her and how badly he’s still hurting, some indeterminate number of years later. But on this day, he runs into his ex-wife. And he’s more focused on talking to her (and getting The Big Life Lesson, which hits us with some major neon signage) than he is on what he came here to do, which is pay respects to the girl. But in the middle of his conversation with his ex, he stops, sends a silent thought up to the daughter, and then goes back to the ex. Hello? And you claim to be torn up about losing her? So much so that you struggle to do your job?

Dude. You just lost ALL credibility with me. Do I really have to finish reading?

Yeah. Another bad book — I know this isn’t the first time I’ve come down hard on books from big-name publishers. It’s not that I’m anti-big publishing. I firmly think that every model has its pros and cons, and that publishing is big enough to need both models.

I’m anti-badly written, badly edited books. That’s the difference.

I see brilliant self-published books. I just read a brilliant historical romance from a major house. Man, that knocked my socks off. Book clubs everywhere should read this and talk about it. It brings up issues of what a happy ending truly is, of the value of getting to know a person before making judgements (although the character in question totally did come off as smarmy and gross, which is where the author’s brilliance really came through), of what it means to love. This book blew me away.

I’m anti-snobs. I’m anti- authors who look down their noses at other authors for choosing their own path. I’m more than anti- authors who won’t give a helping hand to their fellow writers. If we all push ourselves to do better and help each other reach for better craft, better editors, better publishing experiences of all kinds, imagine the literary works we’d be putting out. And I don’t mean literary in the sense of High Falutin’ Lit. I mean literary in the sense of basic words spelled right. Stories that are filled with believable facts and that push the cliches aside and give us characters and storylines we can buy and root for and never want to see end.

And one last footnote: In the middle of reading this latest piece of drek, I came across a job posting from the publisher. I thought about going for it, but it looks like I’d have to stop working for the authors who I currently work for, and I’m just not into that idea. I’d be glad to work something else out, however. It’s all about better books, right?

The eleven week mark came and went pretty unremarkably. And yet, it was the single most important week since it happened, since the retinal repair. This was the third in the series of important things — all things come in threes, right? — and of it all, this was my favorite important week yet.

I went from being a patient to being myself again.

Now, as I’ve said, full healing will take about a year. My optometrist yesterday said he can’t even guess when the cataract/refraction surgery will take place. Maybe the surgeon is waiting for more healing, less swelling. Maybe he’s waiting for the cataract to sing and dance (okay, not anyone’s words, but you know what I mean). Maybe he’s waiting for my vision to settle and resolve — that’s what my money is on. And I’m in no rush. A new pair of glasses is being made as we speak. It’s all good, even if it’s not over yet.

And it is good.

I had agonized from the moment this happened about whether or not I’d be available for last weekend, for this eleventh anniversary.

My son had an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. The coach had told me back in November he wanted me to be there. Hell, *I* wanted to be there; there’s something magical about being outside all day, watching the heart and soul that Ultimate demands of its players. And even though this weekend wound up being cold and rainy on the first day, causing a couple emergency runs to stores for heavier clothes and trash bags to keep gear dry, it was still magical.

See what I mean?

This was warmup Sunday morning. Yes, that’s frost on the ground. Yes, that’s a hot air balloon in the background. Yes, I had a hard time seeing to grab this shot, between the sun and my poor beat-up eye. But it hung there so perfectly over the team…

Magical.

I stood there, on Sunday, the day after the eleventh anniversary of the day I tried to kill myself with a bicycle, and I took a deep breath of the around-freezing air. And at last, I felt alive again. Not wounded, not scared of what was going to happen. Myself. Strong, tough, smart, cool. A small force of nature. Restored.

Okay, and a little bit cold, too. And maybe, just maybe…

a little bit muddy.

That’s a crummy picture of my feet yesterday.

I wasn’t feeling optimistic about the outcome of my latest appointment with the surgeon. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure what a “good” outcome or “good” news could be.

So I wore my red Teva hiking boots. They have been cursed so far: I’ve worn them twice to the surgeon. The first time, I found out the pressure in my eye was too high and the visit dragged on and I wound up on the altitude sickness medicine that made me sick, loopy, and exhausted. All at once. The second time I wore the boots was the last visit, when the scar tissue and detachment were discovered.

Clearly, the boots are the problem.

Which is why I wore them. I was either sealing my fate or breaking the curse of the red boots.

To help push the situation in my favor, I paired my red boots (yes, on St. Paddy’s Day, even) with my favorite Metallica shirt. Because nothing says powerful good luck like a totally obscure band t-shirt that I can’t find a picture of in Google Images. (You Met old-school Met fans, it’s the shadow man, with a design that is cool until you look at the back, and then it’s effing cool)

The Curse of the Red Boots was broken by the Massive Magic of the Mighty Metallica.

The detachment is still there. It must be small because the fellow couldn’t see it. It’s not interfering with my vision, either.

Unless it turns into a tear, I’m going to live with it. No, the retina won’t die if it’s not pressed up against its snuggle bunny, the eye itself.

And the vision I’m swearing about? Should resolve itself over the next year. Yes, I said year. Do the nine weeks already under my belt count toward that year? Maybe. I didn’t ask. Don’t really care. Fifty-two weeks or forty-one… it’ll happen on its own time frame, although right now, I am healing ahead of schedule. (Hello, Mr. Cataract. We’ve been expecting you. Table for one?)

This brings new restrictions in my life. No more ice hockey, even though I haven’t played in over 20 years. No new contact sports, which really got ruled out when my hip went south. And eye protection, eye protection, eye protection. After all, I only have one good eye. I can’t risk it.

That brought me and the boy over to my eye doctor last night. We picked out a new pair of glasses (with clip-on polarized shades. I’m so excited!) and I have an appointment to adjust the prescription the right eye is peering through, with the intention of doing it a couple of times until things resolve. Yes, it’ll be expensive. But dammit, I’m worth it.

Actually, it’s not a question of worth. It’s that seeing life with the slightest of blurred edges is damn annoying and if we can fix it, we’re fixing it. And those clip-on shades? Best thing since Twinkies (the old recipe, thankyouverymuch) because frankly, wearing a pair of sunglasses over my current glasses is not a sexy look, and I have an inside line on my hottie coach. The team’s been practicing. They have a showcase this weekend which I have to miss ’cause I’m taking part of the boy’s team to a tournament. Hottie coach is back in town.

Susan’s gotta be at her best, man.

Which makes one wonder just how gentle my new life has to be lived. I mean… hot man? Restraint? Aren’t those oxymorons?

I’m just glad the curse of the red boots is over and I can wear them confidently again.

The first theory was that the nitrous oxide the surgeon had filled my eye with would be gone four weeks post-surgery, but nope. Wishful thinking.

The gas remained in my eye until a few days past the eight week post-surgical mark before my body evicted the last of it.

It was kind of funny, actually. I could see it when I took my shower (with these gas bubbles, you can see them. You’re not supposed to be able to see through them, but your favorite editor here truly has an eagle eye), and it was small. Really small. The size of some of the breakaway spots I’d gotten to watch early on. I knew that, at last, I’d be free of it. Yes, I’d begun to have doubts. I’d presented it with rent agreements. When those had failed, I’d warned it that it would be evicted.

Twenty minutes after my shower, I looked down and … couldn’t find it. So I waited an hour. Tried again.

Nothing.

I kept trying for a few hours after that, but it didn’t reappear. And the feeling of looking through a drop of water was vanishing, too.

The sexy lime green wristband came off. The car keys came out.

I have my freedom back (but I uh… clearly… need a new prescription to get me over the hump until the refraction), but it may be short-lived. We’ll know more next week.

In the meantime, if you need me, check the garage. If the cars are there, don’t be surprised to find me on a yoga mat.

I have nine weeks of sit-ups, push ups, and planks to make up for.

Oh, and a bike or two to ride.

Nine weeks since the fall. Eight weeks since the first retinal repair.

I say first because I still don’t believe there won’t be a second one. And that’s got me on the world’s cruelest teeter totter. Will I need surgery? Won’t I? Am I okay? Is my vision worse? Can I live with this? Do I need to? Do I want to? If I have surgery, will I get more scar tissue and have to go through this again? Will I lose any, or more, vision? Have I even lost vision?

I don’t know if I’ll be having another major surgery or not. I’m trying not to dwell on it, I really am. But my best and favorite distraction — work — hasn’t been going so well.

Look, I get it. This is big, major stuff. Clients don’t know if I’ll be here, if I can see, if my usual eagle eye is still operational. And I’ve been blogging almost exclusively about the injury and the ordeal that recovery has turned into. Am I really in this upbeat mindset you are reading about?

Well, yes, I actually am. Until the word of the latest detachment and the vigil I’ve been forced to keep, anyway. I’ve actually had a few anxiety attacks, or the beginnings of some. I’ve never had one in my life, reminding me why I force myself to be upbeat and happy most of the time. Life is easier with a smile. I can say that for certain now that I’ve had a few cycles where thoughts just get more and more negative, as they swirl faster and faster until I feel like I’m drowning.

Yes, it’s better to stop dwelling on what might be and focus instead on work. I’m left-eye dominant and it’s my right eye that I hurt, so my vision isn’t as badly impaired as if I’d hurt my dominant eye. That’s been the magic of this accident. I may prefer my friends to stand on my right, but my left eye leads the charge.

I was cleared to work seven weeks ago. I have been working… some. And I love what I do. I’m good at it. And it’s been such a blessed distraction, making me feel in control at a time when I’m at the mercy of a healing body. I’ve needed to work. And yes, it helps me remain positive.

So it kills me when I get this message from clients and others I’ve made commitments to: You have a lot on your plate right now and don’t me adding to it.

Yes, I do!!!

Like I said: work is stress relief. It makes me happy. It fills my bank account, and that in turn makes me happy, too. Working distracts me from myself, and I’m on such a teeter totter of emotions that work helps keep me either upbeat or even. No more of this downer stuff; I don’t like it!

None of us have a crystal ball. We don’t know what’s going to happen with my eye.

But we DO know I’m good at what I do. We know I’m pretty much homebound. I’ve got the time. My dominant eye is fine and carrying the load.

And if you take a step back and think, you’ll remember something: a bored Susan gets into trouble. And just wait until you guys see what I’ve been up to…

Eight weeks and two days. Seven weeks post-surgery.

* I’ve resigned myself to going back in for a second repair and a third surgery late in March. I just have. Mr. Google isn’t always your friend when you’re hurt, but I don’t need Mr. Google to tell me that the retina is supposed to be attached to the side of the eye and bad things happen if it isn’t.

And that’s before I get the weird flashes of light that are my own private showing of the Northern Lights.

* I ordered a new Road ID just now, before I wrote this post. The kids and I were looking through the list of slogans — the boy, of course, loved the Latin and thought I needed the slogan that said, “Always where under where” — and I suggested mine should be I don’t need no stinkin’ eye protection.

They dared me to do it.

So, of course, I didn’t.

* The gas bubble is STILL in my eye. This is one stubborn sucker! When I’m in a good mood, it’s my little buddy. When I’m in a bad mood, well… there are a lot of people out there who don’t know how thoroughly and creatively I can swear, grumble, and whine. These people are lucky.

The bubble does distort my vision.

* I was out doing something today and realized that yep, because of the new tear, I’ve lost a tiny bit of peripheral vision. Just enough that I’d been wondering, looking funny at things, trying to figure it out. But when I was doing something familiar and noticed the absence was when I could admit it to myself.

I’m not as unscathed by this thing as I’d thought.

And that’s good and bad. I mean, there should be something more than one eye with 20/20 vision and a lot of memories to remind me of what happened. Something that reminds me of what I’ve been through, what I’ve survived. Hopefully, I won’t need bigger reminders, or more of them. Because let’s face it: no one wants to lose their vision. Even tiny bits of it.

But I have.

* I’m in the first major funk since the accident. It’s the new detachment, the scar tissue. Because if I scarred after one surgery, what’ll happen after the second? How much worse will it get? How much vision will I lose with each subsequent scar tissue growth, detachment, and repair?

This keeps me up at night. This is not the way I like to be kept up at night.

The vigil for a retinal tear from the detachment continues… keep the prayers coming.

When this eye thing first began, I would wake up, terrified I had permanently lost my vision in the bad eye.

Of course, time is fixing that and I’ve been fairly optimistic that things are going well.

But a visit to the surgeon put a damper on my optimism. And I’m on pins and needles the next couple of weeks, waiting to see what will happen.

We’re about halfway in the worst-case scenario: scar tissue is forming in my eye. It’s puled the retina away from the surface of my eye, but right now, it’s an okay thing. No loss of vision. I could live the rest of my life like this. That’s what the surgeon said. I like this guy. I trust him.

The problem is what will happen if more scar tissue forms. That increases the chance that the retina will tear. And if it does… back to the OR I will go. (We even have a date reserved.)

So… back on the prayer lists, if you are so inclined.

I have some extra time over the next three weeks, if you need an edit. Frankly, I’d welcome the distraction. I need it right now. I love what I do, so working helps keep those pins and needles at bay and under control. And the income ain’t bad, either.

It’s not often that I’m rendered speechless. Or maybe it is; I’ve never been one of those people with a lightning wit. I’m slower. I need time to sit and digest and then come up with those zingers you guys love me for. (usually. Every now and then, I’m more on the ball.)

But this one… this one… Just… wow.

This wasn’t supposed to publish. I’d taken it into a draft because, frankly, the situation resolved itself.

But the takeaway remains (and if you read the original post, this doesn’t necessarily apply to the person who originally rendered me speechless):

You’re a professional, right? Be a professional.

That means
1. Use a reliable e-mail address. Gmail is free!
2. Like Janet Reid says all the time, make sure that address doesn’t have a cutesie user name.
3. Speak to people. Don’t assume. Don’t ever assume.
4. If you’re in charge, you’re sometimes expected to go the extra mile, especially if it’s for someone you value. Don’t make a judgement on what’s in the other person’s best interest without speaking to them. Your idea of their best interest may be years apart from theirs — but it might be their call to make.
5. Being in charge means listening to others. To listen, you have to talk. To talk, you often have to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
6. Sometimes, you are in possession of sensitive information that others shouldn’t see. Like e-mail addresses or identities. Guard these with your life.
7. Honor the people who are working for you. They can quit at any time (unless you’re Kesha, but we’re not going there). Talk to them. Listen to them. Don’t assume. Value them.

It’s not hard. It really isn’t. Most of this is stuff that can apply to any situation. Don’t assume. Listen. Talk. Communicate. Value.

So… I screwed up somehow and the wrong post went live.

But the takeaway remains. It’s a good reminder for all of us.

This was my horoscope this morning, from Tarot.com: lasting success is achieved by taking small steps again and again until you reach your goal.

We’re at seven weeks post-accident, six weeks post-retinal reconstruction. Nothing new to report. The nitrous oxide in my eye… still there. Over the weekend, it spawned two little pearls, one each day, that hung out on the outer rim of the bubble before finally dissolving around mid-afternoon. I was hopeful it was the start of the final end, but… no go. No Son of Bubble this morning.

The problem with long injuries is that the people who rush to your aid at the beginning have forgotten about you. Their lives go back to normal; they’ve done their duty, showing up with a meal. Now, of course, this is a blanket statement, but last week, I went eight solid days without leaving the house. I didn’t need anything at the grocery, so there was no need to ask for a lift anywhere, so… I didn’t. And no one dropped in to say, “Hey, what have you been doing? Have you gotten out at all?”

By Saturday, I was climbing the walls. And it was in the fifties and sunny. I texted my BFF: If I don’t get out of this house, I am going for a bike ride.

He was on my driveway in ten minutes, and I spent the day with him, running his kids around and hanging out. (For those of you not in the know, I routinely help run their kids around. Two parents, four kids, lots of activities, and his wife, one of my other BFFs, is often out of town. The kids are like my own, and I love all six of ’em. No, not six kids. Six in the family.)

My own kids came home from a weekend with their dad. As soon as she got in the house, the girl inspected my eye. She proclaimed it less bloody and open wider. I asked if that meant the swelling was down; one of the BFF’s neighbors, who I used to work out with at the Hoity Toity Health Club, stopped in to pick up her son and said until she was close, she couldn’t tell anything was funky, other than I was wearing my glasses.

That’s progress. Maybe it means an end to the weird, almost-horrified looks I’d get when I’d go out.

I’m not complaining!

Small steps, like my horoscope said. It’s only taken seven weeks to get this far.

But the big one came later that evening, as we were cleaning up from dinner. It was the girl again, telling me that I seemed different. Less sick or injured. More energetic. More myself.

Thinking about it, I have to agree. As restlessness was conquered, as I’ve been able to get outside, either to sit on the deck or to take a short walk (and I promise, it’s short! Nothing like the prospect of losing your vision after you’ve fought seven weeks to save it to keep me from not pulling a Typical Susan and overdoing), as I got out of the house, I could feel it all settling back into place.

But the gas is still in my eye, which means I’m still not allowed to drive. I may be stuck inside all week again, and that’s a prospect I’m less at peace with.

Here’s your words of wisdom: when your friends and family have a long rehab, don’t forget about them. Sometimes, the farther out a person is from the trauma, the more they need you.

It’s hard to detail the healing when it happens in such small increments. There’s more time between visits to the surgeon. The eye itself is more open, which means I can see how red it still is, especially at the site of the rupture. And I am an absolute pro at pouring eye drops down my face, particularly when I’m tired.

The laughing gas Band-aid should be disappearing soon, although at this point in time, I’d say it seems determined to outlast the surgeon’s prediction. What’s cool is that, from time to time (usually when I’m a bit more active than merely sitting around), I can see little dots break away from the bubble and float away into the ether. Best guess is that’s the reabsorption of the gas. It’s like sunspots. My own private show.

Work is still slow, because my vision is still off and I still tire easily. It’s no longer double, which reinforces the idea that it’s the gas bubble that caused it. Now I have streaks, color, auras… except they aren’t auras. They are streaks of color. As I’m typing, they are the color of my hands. I need a lot of breaks, a lot of naps, but I am working and have a bunch of clients to schedule. That’s good. I can only exist on savings for so long before they run out.

But now I begin to think too much. Will I be able to get a contact on a repaired eye? Will I need to; I’m told (but not by my surgeon) that the cataract surgery will include Lasik. Will they do one eye, or both? If they don’t do the good eye, I’m SO ordering the expensive contact lenses for it! Is the cataract even forming? What’s the expected timeframe? A year… a month… what?

And, of course, is the repair holding?

I passed the six-week mark of the accident last Saturday, and the five-week mark of the repair surgery yesterday. Will I be able to go to my son’s next Ultimate frisbee tournament? Not just will I be medically cleared, but will I have the stamina, the energy? No one said I have to stand on the edge of the field for six or eight hours, but … it’s a long drive, from here to Cincinnati. I want to: I want to drive the boy and the two I took to Virginia back in November. (that feels like an entire lifetime ago, and in a way, I suppose it was) But can I? Is this realistic, when I am still homebound, when two hours doing errands wipes me out?

Questions.

I’ve been told I think too much. I don’t doubt that I probably do. And, of course, the best way to stop all the questions, other than being patient and finding out the answers in due time, is to distract myself. With work.

Back to it, then.

So another week, another post-op trip to the surgeon. Not much has changed… my progress is impressive and more than was expected. I was allowed to change the eyedrop schedule. (THIS is living large, folks.)

But healing is expected to be super slow. For one, I’m a slow healer, as my sports med guru will tell you. For another, there’s a layer of trauma on top of an already slow-to-heal surgical repair. The trauma adds healing time.

In other words: I’m still spending most of my time around the house, on the couch. And at my desk, although sitting more than standing (Oh, my aching back). I like being at my desk because my water glass is handy, so I’m finally feeling properly hydrated and like myself again. Getting off the altitude sickness medicine helps with that, too, and the doctor apologized for putting me on it (except, he said, it works so well. Which is true), but I told him I had no issues with it. While I was sleeping 12+ hours a day, I was getting some good healing time in, and I’ll take the healing.

Of course, it’s hard to work when you’re sleeping that much. And I am working, so if you’ve been holding off on contacting me about your new book, get over that because you’re last to get the memo. That may mean you’re last to get the dates you want, too. And yes, I am still a bit on the slow side. But that’s improving, too.

But… my other restrictions remain. No lifting heavy things. I can cook and do dishes. And I’ve been sneaking out to the grocery once or twice a week. Nothing major, but enough to remind me that there’s an outside world.

The girl took me for a walk the other day. I made it four houses down the street. At this rate, I’ll be back on my bike and riding centuries next week!

One downer, though: sometimes, after trauma, the eye gets frozen and remains dilated. Again, time and healing will tell, but on the flip side, my eyes are so dark, you may never notice if this happens to me. Then again, you might. I don’t know. Unless there are mirrors around, I only get to look out through my eyes, not at them.

Last night, though, the kids were helping lead the Friday night Shabbat service at temple, and the girl in particular wanted me to be there. I think she’s tired of people asking how I am, and I was certainly greeted with enough warm hugs and friendly faces to make me believe that. The kids — mine and their classmates — led a fabulous service, although I hope no one bought the boy’s bluster there at the end. He knew damn well about that assignment. We’d discussed it; that’s where my “no harm, no bovine” joke came from and no, it’s not funny when that’s all you hear, but it’s elicited really satisfying groans from everyone else who’s heard the whole thing. Next time you see me, ask me about it.

Interestingly, my friends at the temple asked the same set of questions, and in the same order:
1. How ARE you?
2. When can you drive?
3. What exactly happened?

And yes, those who heard the whole story gave me quite satisfying slack jaws. My cousin posited that I need to take my bike in for an exorcism. Another friend suggested I’m the victim of a voodoo attack (think about it: you need a sharp set of eyes to edit, and a writer needs vision to tell her stories properly. I can believe this one!). Let’s face it: people fall off their bikes all the time. But taking out an eye in the fall? Very rare, indeed. So rare, it freaked out the good-looking resident who helped with the first surgery. (He’s the one who raved about my handwriting and what a shame that wasn’t a pickup line. I’m still sad about that. And what do you mean, why am I thinking about good-looking residents and pickup lines when I’m possibly concussed and about to be wheeled into emergency surgery to save my eye? You mean you don’t?)

It was a good night last night. I’ve got weeks ahead of me yet to sit and heal, so it’s back to the couch (or desk chair and stop it. I am NOT standing at my standing desk. Nope. Not me. My back is just happy because it’s happy.). The boy has a couple of Ultimate tournaments coming up this spring and his coach has asked me to come along for the trips. The girl has an anime con, and she wants me to come. And I’m waiting on word about a pending promotional appearance that I doubt I’ll make the cut for (because I’ve had a pretty long string of good luck at this point and if I have to choose, I choose my eye) but cross your fingers because it combines my favorite things in life and has a scary echo to the past five weeks of my life.

Yeah. Not getting out so much yet. This can still go wrong, no matter how good — okay, tired from my night out — I feel today. (Still not standing at the standing desk!) But it’s progress and it’s encouraging and the only person not surprised by how well I’m healing is my sports med guy, who’s seen me rehab around injuries that would take out 95% of the population.

I got this. As soon as I hit the levers on my desk and sit back down.

Five weeks down since I fell. At least five more to go. I got this.

I am trying to keep my computing time to work time, so from now on, whenever these questions pop into my inbox, I’m sending you the link to this post. Because do you really think I won’t update here and on Facebook when things change? Really?

No, I mean that. REALLY?????

Sigh. You did, didn’t you?

So. Here we go:

How’s the eye?
Well, it’s still in my head. It’s still got a gas bubble in it, so it’s like looking through a prism. That, in turn, is worse than being both seasick and drunk at the same time and no, at least in terms of my eye, those two things don’t cancel each other out. So there’s a lot of people out there thinking I’m winking at them when really, I’m just keeping the injured eye closed. Trust me: the world at large is not this good looking that I’m doing this much winking.

How do you feel?
I didn’t realize how sick the altitude sickness medicine made me until I stopped taking it. That’s when I stopped sleeping twelve hours or more a day, too. Which was kinda sad. I mean, you do a lot of healing when you’re sleeping that much. Of course, I don’t miss the huge number of crackers I had to eat to keep my stomach calm. Now that I’ve kicked the meds and the crackers out of my diet again, I feel overall better. Just lazy and a bit slow. And that part? I’m kind of enjoying. How often do YOU get ordered to sit on the couch and pretend you’re a woman of leisure hanging out in Bora Bora? Although, cripes, I hope the furniture in Bora Bora is more ergonomically perfect for a woman of my lack of height.

How can you be such a good sport about this?
Well, what choice do I have? Dude. I’m a single mom. I own a microbusiness. Before this happened, I hadn’t chosen an easy path through this thing called life, but one thing I have learned is that if you can’t laugh, it ain’t worth enduring. So I am making the choice to make jokes. My favorite was to a friend who was happy she could roller skate after a layoff of like twenty years. “Just like riding a bike,” I said on Facebook. “Wait. We all know what happened the last time I rode a bike. Nevermind.”

That may be my crowning moment, but I’m always looking to top it.

Besides, you all are having a lot more fun following along when I’m leading the charge into the field of funny. And don’t forget, my eye is full of LAUGHING GAS. It kinda goes with the healing.

What do the doctors say?
My surgeon, who I like a lot, says very little. So there is no prognosis, either short-term or long-term. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. See above about having fun with it.

Any verdict about a concussion?
Nope, and no one seems to care about it. My massage therapist earned his keep again last week (and not just because neither of us could remember when we last shaved our legs) when he discovered I’ve got a lovely case of whiplash. So this one, we’re just not going to know about. But I still have headaches and I still have other symptoms, but they could all be explained away by the eye, so… maybe? Probably?

It’s the not knowing that is making me nuts. In fact, it’s easier to accept we won’t know anything about the eye than it is to accept that we’ll never know for certain how this impacted my poor brain.

However, I have been told that this little escapade of mine has made me funny. Or funnier, depending on who you ask.

When can you drive again?
Well, think about it. Do you really WANT someone driving when her eye is full of laughing gas? Just beyond the risk that presents to my vision if I do something dumb, and just beyond the fact that I have to keep my eye closed so I don’t have the acid trip-drunk-seasick thing happening…

I know driving me and my kids around is a pain in the rear. I get that. Trust me. I used to do it on a daily basis. I can’t wait to do it again. But right now, we all have to wait. And be it in six more weeks or a year from now, I promise to either pay it back or pay it forward. This does not mean I’m going to go drive for Uber, btw.

If I had a shot for every time I’ve been asked about driving, I bet I’d stop complaining about that weird acid-seasick-drunk effect my healing eye gives me. And not just because I’d be too pickled to care.

Can I bring you dinner?
This is a dicey one. For one, I’m independent as hell and the kids and I love to cook.

But here’s the bigger problem: people have shown up on my doorstep with food. Which is super nice, except… I have other health issues. And most people have shown up with some variant of red sauce, pasta, and/or beef, pork, or lamb. All of these foods (except for maybe the tomato sauce, but the jury’s out about me and nightshades) promote inflammation, and I have an inflammation issue already. So these good-hearted gestures are really doing a lot of damage, and at a time when I can’t exercise to offset some of the effects.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture. I do. But… my favorite foodie care package came from Dawn, who took the time to ask what I was craving. She came up short on a quart from Bruster’s (not that I blame her), but she delivered trail mix from Aldi, who makes the best trail mix ever, and my most favorite food item yet: a bag of baby carrots!

It sounds kinda crazy, but the snack foods — and healthy, anti-inflammatory foods, at that — have been the biggest blessing. That’s because I eat more than one meal a day. And I am a snacker, so a handful of trail mix, a handful of carrots… Oh, every day, I say a silent thank you to Dawn for her ingenuity.

I did also ask for super ripe cantaloupe at room temperature, perfectly crisp and chilled watermelon that’s been cut into cubes and snaps when you bite into it and then turns into juice on your tongue, and blueberries. The blueberries were delivered, thanks to a friend who was running to the grocery for me anyway. The rest, I think we’ll have to wait to summer for.

So what DO you need?
Honestly? Company. Pick up dinner (oh, how I could go for my local Chinese takeout) and bring it over and hang out with me while we eat. Together. Or lunch. Lunch is good. Come get me and let’s go out for a quick meal – but it’s got to be quick, and it’s got to be somewhere I can show up in my sweats. Because, dude, I’m allowed to be lazy, so I’m milking this. And it’s got to be quick because I swear the whole world is staring at me and yes, I’m the rare and beautiful Cyclops right now, but… like I said, there just ain’t that many good-looking people in the world who are worth winking at. Besides, I do get tired easily. After all, I’m busy healing! (I hope)

Which brings me to the final question:
Why did you get over the hot young thing?
I didn’t.

It’s the off-season.

Drooling, lusting, sighing, and off-color jokes will resume closer to my birthday. However, any of you who encounter him (and I’m looking at my nineteen-year-old pro athlete here) are free to tell him to quit wasting his time on my Twitter feed and friend me on Facebook instead. Because as most of you know: we’re having a good time over there. Think what he’s missing out on!

We all struggle with finding balance in our lives. That’s normal.

It’s just extra hard when one day, you feel really good so you sit and work and make lofty goals for the week, and the next day, you crash back to earth and can barely tolerate looking at a screen as stuff piles up.

I’ve been cleared to lay on my right side and my stomach, which I still can’t do because of the ongoing orthopedic issues. Tuesday night was the first night in I don’t know how long that I didn’t get up during the night and come sleep on the couch, on my back but propped up as the doctor ordered.

And don’t tell the kids, but I am allowed to cook, wash light dishes (the surgeon clearly doesn’t know I use All-Clad, picked up at seconds sales for all you who wonder how I can afford All-Clad on my budget. That’s how. My kids won’t need to buy cookware, and maybe my grandkids won’t either, unless there are more grandkids than there are pots), and do the laundry.

So there’s progress, and it’s welcome and moving about feels good.

Maybe that’s the problem. Editing isn’t exactly the most physical of jobs. That’s why a week post-surgery, the doctor cleared me to return to it. But… I do need it, or I feel like I’m sliding into a morass of laziness.

Not to mention that my wounded eye still picks up and reflects screen light back at me for hours after I’ve walked away.

So… balance. Clients who are waiting on stuff, I’m moving along. Slowly, but I am. Clients afraid to send me stuff, get over that. I’m a bit slower, so know that and adjust your schedules accordingly. And clients who still haven’t figured out you should be reading my blog, well… I don’t know how to help you at this second. See above about screens and lights. No offense, but I’d rather tackle the work waiting for me. I’d rather you add to the pile.

Don’t hold back. I’m good at what I do, and that means I’m good at reaching the balance I need.

Okay, maybe I’m not so good at maintaining my balance when on a bike and presented with a set of circumstances that’ll probably never be replicated or known, but really? You gonna hold one little spill off a road bike against me?

For the record, I can still close my eyes – yes, both of them – and see pink handlebar tape coming at me. Even though the pink handlebar tape has long been dumped in a landfill by this point. It may never leave me.

It’s a good reminder of the need for balance. On the bike. In life. And yes, in your writing.

You really think I wouldn’t be able to stop talking about writing forever? Really? And here I thought you knew me…

Yeah. You thought blowing a hole in your eye was all gore and gross?

You are SO RIGHT.

I mean, think about it. The whole point of going for that bike ride on January 2 was to stretch out my back. I have back problems; this isn’t new. It’s a something like nine months older than my oldest. Go figure! If you ever wondered what would happen if Gumby had kids, I invite you to meet my back.

Yesterday, I woke up at three — in the morning — with some pretty excruciating back pain. At first, I thought the nausea was from the medicine, but as the morning progressed, I realized that nope, it’s the back. How’d I figure this out?

Easy. Since the second surgery, I have been instructed to lay either on my stomach (see note about bad back) or left side only. Absolutely, under no circumstances, am I allowed on my back. So… all night long, I’m on my left side. I wake up like six and seven times and have to get up and stretch because I can’t roll over. And all day, I sit canted off to the left, which is the normal way I have of sitting on the couch. I brought a bed pillow down and get all good and comfy and usually fall asleep.

It’s not nearly as luxurious as it sounds. And falling asleep in front of Jeopardy every night? Sexy, baby. Sexy.

So. How’d I figure out this is my back and not the nausea-inducing medicine? Easy. I laid on my back on the cold bathroom floor and felt the spasm ease. As the spasm eased, so did the nausea.

Why the bathroom floor? Dude, this is the sexy edition.

I’m still feeling pretty crummy as I write this, and I’m waiting for word from the doctor as to whether or not I can spend some time on my back and hopefully ease the situation — which is that I’ve got a pretty major dislocation going, between the lack of exercise and the lack of support as I lay on my left side. It seemed like the perfect time to share with you some of the other truly sexy moments of recovery.

There’s the plastic eye shield they want me to wear at night, although I’m not sure why. It’s not like I can move at all, stuck on my left side as I create an orthopedic nightmare (and remember: I was on my bike to AVOID this particular nightmare. How’s that for karma?). But… wear the eye shield.

Let me tell you about it. It’s clear plastic. It has holes in it so air can presumably flow, but I continue to wake up with my lashes crusted shut. Sexy, baby. Sexy.

The shield itself, as I’ve said to many of my real-life friends, looks like a cross between the drain in the bottom of a urinal and the plastic part of a jock strap.

(At this revelation, most of my friends pause, either to try to envision this or to figure out how it is that I know what those two things look like.)

I have never been more glad to be single in my life.

But we’re not done yet! Nope. I have the singular privilege of wearing a lime-green plastic band around my right wrist that announces to the world that my eye is full of laughing gas and in the unlikely event that something happens to me, this needs to be a known fact so that in potentially saving my life, no one makes me go blind along the way.

Yes, it’s a lime green, plastic, sexy-as-hell MedicAlert bracelet. I’m grateful it’s only temporary.

And then there’s my sexy swollen eyelid, my sexy closed eye, the sexy concept of having a blind spot that people can sit in and take advantage of…

I’m not sure that any injury is ever sexy, but at least the boob job gave me a sexier outcome than this will. And the recovery was a heck of a lot shorter. We still have weeks to go, my friends. Weeks and weeks and weeks… if my poor back doesn’t eat me alive first.

Recovering is hard work.

Spin that, twist it, turn it however you like. But the simple fact is that recovering is hard work. It may not seem like it — even I am now a pro with drops, and I’m not doing much more than hanging out on the couch with a cat who’s decided he’s my therapy cat — because, really, how hard is it to sit on the couch all day?

You’d be surprised. It’s hard, and not just because if you’ve followed me for the past year, you’ve seen me happily and gloriously transition to a standing desk.

My teenagers have been phenomenal, helping with laundry and dishes and the boy has taken over the litter pans as his own project, no resentment that his sister isn’t helping with them (she’s getting pretty much the full brunt of the laundry, and they are splitting dishes). It’s working.

We have a hodgepodge of friends helping out with the driving. A few strangers. And last year’s captain of the boy’s ultimate team thrown in for good measure. And food still shows up every now and then, although with less frequency. That’s a good thing. My freezer is full of red sauce and meatballs!

And yet… and yet… snags happen. One happened yesterday: the pressure in my eye is still too high. We have to get it down. No options. We HAVE to get it down. Two pharmacies, two new eye drops and an oral something-or-other, and a lot of crossed fingers, toes, arms, and legs. I’d cross my eyes, too, but … yeah. Maybe not right now.

This would be a good time for more prayers.

But there’s a lot to be grateful for. Kids who bravely face this with me. The cat who’s decided he’s my therapy cat and rarely leaves my side. Health insurance that’s saving me from bankruptcy and letting me keep my house.

And, of course, a sense of humor. Some of the bad jokes are slowing as this progresses from a shocking incident to become a new way of life. Doesn’t mean I’m not seizing opportunities. It just means I’m not searching them out, trying to use levity to keep my cool.

Except… right now, I’m kinda scared. This was a hurdle I knew we had to jump over, but when I’m standing in front of it, it’s a pretty tall one, although the surgeon is concerned but not terribly alarmed. Keep the good vibes coming.

And work! Work is rolling in and I was going to turn yesterday into my first work day, but wound up spending first most of the day at the doctor’s and then a couple hours trying to find the medicines I need. (And in the middle of that, my father had the misfortunate of Face Timing me and I think I scared him more than I needed to, but my transportation was on a strict timeframe, so chatting wasn’t the best idea.)

Overall, it’s a mixed bag. I’m looking forward to working today, on the couch. Sitting on my butt, per the doctor’s orders. Taking my medicines and eye drops and hanging out. And healing. Thursday, I go back to see how things are progressing. And I’m scared of what the answer will be.

Recovery is hard work. But you gotta do the hard work to get the payout. Vision. Standing desks. And clients who write amazing fiction and keep me on my toes.

As one of my favorite clients says, Excelsior.

But keep those prayers coming. I’ll keep doing the hard work.

Monday dawned the way Mondays do: full of promise of the week ahead, if only you’d get yourself out of bed and in gear so you can discover it all.

I got the kids up and moving and together, we waited for our ride to the hospital. The kids had said they’d be too nervous to focus in school all day, so I’d told them that instead of staying home, where they’d still be nervous, to come to the hospital with me and my friend. They’d be able to watch the process and that ought to help. It wouldn’t be a panacea, of course. For years now, I’ve been the rock for these kids. They were understandably scared.

Hell, so was I.

The week before, I had cleared it with the schools that the kids would be out so they could be with me, and we fed the foster kitty and I encouraged the kids to use their nervous energy to straighten stuff up. They, of course, retreated into their phones. Kids.

My friend and her husband picked us up and we piled in and he drove and then we were at the hospital and in the waiting room and man, it was hot in there. And I was dressed to recover at home, in fleece. I keep the house on the cool side, so by the time I finally got to go back to pre-op, I was getting sick from the warmth.

Nothing a flimsy hospital gown can’t cure, though, and once I started feeling better, my nurse showed up. “Get ready,” she warned me. I was going to have three series of a lot of drops — “five or six,” she assured me.

Now, before all this happened, if you asked me to lay my head back so someone — you know, like my eye doctor — could give me drops, I’d have a panic attack. Just the act of leaning back while someone stood at my head… and there are people reading this who know me really well. They can’t believe it. SUSAN, having a PANIC attack?

Well, that’s how it USED to be. Amazing the fears you conquer when you blow a hole in your eyeball.

Once the drops were in, she asked why I was watching Cops: Las Vegas or whatever it was. “You don’t have to,” she said, handing me the paddle to change the channel. That’s when we discovered the privacy curtain was covering the sensor, so I said to her, “I’ll just flip it one channel. Anything’s bound to be better than this.”

I laughed at my bad luck. This is the time for bad luck, and yep, there’s a picture of Jesus on the cross and … well, I didn’t stick around. This ain’t no channel for a good Jewish girl.

But Amy the nurse needed to get to other patients, so I said, “I’m going to flip to … here. And this is what it’ll be.”

It was a commercial. I was rolling the dice again. But I couldn’t keep the nurse standing there, holding the privacy curtain away from a TV I didn’t particularly want to be watching.

Turns out, it’s action month on AMC, and that meant the end of the Karate Kid.

Amy went to bring my friend and my kids back to sit with me. And there might have been a second set of drops in there, too. There were only two chairs and three visitors, so the girl hopped up on my bed near my feet. She kept complaining she couldn’t see the TV; it had glare on it, she said. I offered to move so she could sit somewhere else on the narrow hospital gurney. She said no. She’s a considerate kid. Or maybe she was worried I’d flash her brother, which was a distinct possibility.

Now, I have awesome friends. Like attracts like after all, right? My kids are funny, when they’re not nervous out of their minds. So we chatted through the end of the Karate Kid and we got the boy to laugh a few times. Amy the nurse might have brought more drops. I know the kids were there for one set because we talked about how much better I’ve gotten about the whole thing.

Didn’t stop the boy from turning a new shade of white, though. Each step of the process, I worried, was going to be too much for him. This is the kid, after all, who passed out during School Career Day when the classroom was hot and the doctor describing his job had pictures of maggot-infested flesh on the screen.

Medicine is not in my son’s future.

Karate Kid ended and we’re still in pre-op. Amy the nurse reports that the surgeon is working on the case before us. The surgeon had told me that he does the sickest patients first, and I seemed to be smack in the middle of his day. Not dire, but not a breeze, either. I guess I was okay with that.

And then it happened. The movie ended and the next one came on. Dudes, it was a doozy of a film. A sequel, even.

Tremors 2.

And I had the volume down low. Which of course means it wasn’t long before the four of us were writing our own scripts and talking about MST3K and … well, party on, Wayne! We were loud. We were laughing. And I kept looking at the people across from me and watching that poor woman’s feet wave with her nervousness while her companion slept and I wanted to go to her and tell her it was okay. I wanted to invite her into our stress-free zone so she could relax and have fun and be in a better place, mentally.

But by the time I would have done this, my IV had been placed. Let me tell you, I’ve had bad IVs before, but these recent two have been amazing. This doctor said, “A little pinch” and I waited for it… and waited for it… and then said, “You mean it’s in? Wow, you’re good.”

I appreciate that sort of care. But it also does a really good job of illustrating how awesome everyone I’ve encountered has been.

We kept this crazy talk going up until the teenage boy needed to be refueled. Not only is he a teenage boy, he’s an athlete these days, Mr. Ultimate Frisbee. He doesn’t have a lot of lean body mass or fat to begin with, so keeping that kid topped off can be a challenge. I sent the three to find the cafeteria and put my stuff in a locker.

That’s when the exhaustion hit. Exhaustion from… all of it. I’ve barely been alone since I fell off my bike. People have been around, and while they’ve been helpful beyond all compare, they are still company in MY home. It’s strange and it’s stressful. And I’m hurt and I’m scared and I’m the one who’s the rock around here and the kids need that to continue and… it was a struggle to stay awake. I actually asked if they’d put more in my IV than saline, but they said no. The nurse anesthetist who was there to check on me patted my shoulder and said it was good that I could relax.

I may have appreciated the contact more than the words.

But then the kids and my friend reappeared and Tremors 2 was still on and I had a new nurse and the fun recommenced and the new nurse came to do more drops… and for the first time, she stood on my left to do them. And for the first time, I didn’t tell her I had bad eye anxiety. And guess what? It was all okay.

By the time the dad from Family Ties was out of the bulldozer and the weird creatures had run into the barn and were happily munching away and we’d thoroughly made fun of all that, things started to happen. The final set of eye drops. The heart monitors put in place (Me to the boy: “Did you just see more of your mother than you ever wanted to, or was [the medical person] in the way?” Boy to me, “Huh? What?” Girl to me, “She’s in the way.”).

My surgeon stopped by. We chatted. He put his initials over my right eye. It felt like he drew a smiley face, but nope. Just the letter E.

I remember the sedative to “relax” me. I think I remember the family standing up. I know I remember handing my glasses over to the girl. And I think I remember the team starting to wheel me out.

The party was over. It had lasted hours. It was good, it kept me calm.

But damn if I didn’t ask, on the drive home, how Tremors 2 ended. Just so I don’t ever have to watch it again to see if I do, indeed, remember.

Dudes, that was one bad movie. And it was so deliciously perfect for the moment, I can’t begin to tell you.