Rain and eye surgery have been the preoccupations so far this summer. So boring. So "elderly"! Also, so amazing! Profound medical knowledge and technology combined with a skilled surgeon has restored my eyesight to a remarkable degree already. It will steadily improve over the next weeks. It was disconcerting to be awake and know what was happening to my very dear and irreplaceable eye(s), but the surgeon completed the procedure in a few MINUTES. I am lucky to live in these remarkable and knowledgeable times.
I know my physical body is slowly wearing out but I feel strong and vital and young at heart most of the time. After the well-intentioned patronizing from the surgical nurses, I realized that I must safeguard my own self-perception going forward on this journey of retirement and old age. The nurses assume I do not understand technology and require someone younger to explain. (I am old, motherfuckers, not stupid!) If I have a little difficulty hearing, it doesn't mean I am mentally deficit as well - I just need the nurse to speak a bit more crisply - not more slowly - not more loudly. The surgical team dealt the worst insult of all. Because I have a cane, they put a second medical band on my wrist bearing the hand written warning: "Fall Risk". Fuck that! I still carry 60 pound bags of oats, 50 pound bags of dog food! I still carry the 5 gallon 40 pound water jugs. I can still push my lawn tractor sideways to move it if I need to. I am not some frail old lady - yet. Becoming physically old happens despite our most fervent desire to not wear out like tired elastic in an old pair of underwear! Those nurses will all grow old, too. Some day they will remember every time they treated an older person like a child and they will regret it. The WORST was insisting that I sit in a goddamned wheelchair after the surgery, then being wheeled out to the curb like a sack of yams! I was perfectly capable of walking and should have been allowed to walk out of there like an adult! (I assume their insurance liability ends at the curb.)
I behaved and did not give any of the nurses a hard time but I doubled my resolve to stay as far away from medicines and doctors as possible for as long as possible. Nothing makes you feel any worse than to be treated like an adult imbecile. However, if they had treated me as callously as people are routinely treated in the work place, I would be bitching even more about that.
I am thankful for the amazing level of knowledge and skill and true medicine available to us. If I regain the ability to clearly see the stars, it will be worth sitting in a wheel chair against my will.
