Have you ever been sick? I mean, reallllyyy sick?! Sick enough your thoughts play tag inside your brain trying to convince you you just might not come out of this one?
Well, I was that sick a couple of weeks ago. Five days without food, and with only very small sips of water to make sure I didn't shrivel up and cease to breathe. I mean, I guess it was time. It's been long enough that I can't recall the last time I was actually sick. But this one was the granddaddy of all stomach viruses.
I was kind of excited (once I found out I would indeed live to see another day), to get on the scales and see how much of this excess weight (I'm gonna blame on the pandemic) I have collected around my waist, had dropped off. It felt like maybe 10 pounds. Surely 5!!! I felt so skinny!!! After a refreshing hot shower and hair washed and conditioned, I stepped on my trusty scales, naked as the day I was born. I close my eyes as I step up and balance myself. Is it 5? 10??? Slowly opening one eye at a time, I peer downward, adjust my glasses, preparing just how I would celebrate. ONE FREAKING POUND???!!! HOW is that even POSSIBLE??? Five days with no food (well there was that couple of nibbles on a half piece of dried toast), and yet nothing had changed in the dynamics of body weight. As a side note: Dennis drinks 6 sodas in one week (instead of his usual 7) and drops 15 pounds. Not fair.
Anyway, this story is about blurry vision. It's pretty amazing how our vision is affected when faced with life altering events such as not being able to walk 2 steps without collapsing from having no strength to motor through. Thus, the trash can remains next to our bed. Not even going to elaborate on that one.
As I lay, hour after excruciating hour, afraid to move in any direction, my mind begins the gymnastics. "Aren't you even a little bit concerned about how your chest has hurt for the last week?" "You know that pressure doesn't feel normal." "And now your stomach lining has expelled itself so you probably won't be able to eat ever again." "So...what if you died in your sleep tonight?" "If you actually pull through this, you should seriously consider writing those letters to your girls you've been thinking about doing, cause, well...you know." "That headache could be something too, right?" "You really shouldn't be working anymore, either. Just face the facts, Mary." "If you only had a week left to live, what would you want to be using that time for? Work? I thought not..." "Not sure you're going have to worry about any of that, though." "Do you think your grand daughters will even remember you after a year or so?"
Blurry vision is a beast.
Reality becomes obscure, at best, and end of life plans begin. Good grief!!! And this is why I always say it would take a genius to figure out why the sparks that flitter around inside my brain are so easily side tracked and colorful.
Also, it's amazing how one is ready to tackle the world again, once vision is corrected. Once the marvelous body we've been using as our home, is whole again, sight is also restored. I think there were moments I knew I would surely pull through this, but for the most part, when my body was idle, my thoughts were not. Quite the opposite...
Those letters have STILL yet to be written, but here I remain...in Mary's World.
