Challenged

As I sit here in Nashville between flights on Monday afternoon I wonder how this challenge will affect the rest of my trip or for that matter my life. 

My goal was to not get near an airport for the better part of two years and here I am flying back to Philadelphia to go to Wills Eye Hospital tomorrow morning. I can’t see out of my right eye. 

Pretty shocking to read right, heck it’s pretty shocking to write. I guess it all started probably 4-5 days ago. I noticed that I had little black specks floating in my vision. Kind of like tiny pepper specks. It was just there no big deal, not a lot, not even that noticeable. On Saturday during our hike where I was swatting flies that were trying to eat me I had a shadow I couldn’t figure out.  I was very preoccupied with getting away from the flies that it wasn’t until after my bike ride that I took the time to finally realize that the shadow that I thought was my nose was actually a half crescent in the lower part of my eye about 5-7% of my right eye. No pain, no discomfort.

On Sunday, yesterday, it was pretty much the same when I woke up. I went for that glorious hike in Pictured Rock National Forest in the rain and somewhere during that hike it started to get worse. But with the views, the rain and where I was. There was nothing I could do except keep going. I was so happy I was using my hiking poles because I was losing my depth of vision and the poles kept me from falling numerous times. I even had the thought that if this was the last thing I see it wouldn’t be that bad. It was that beautiful of a hike. By the end of the day I was down about 70% of my vision. Concerning huh.

On my drive to catch up to Jill at our new campsite in Ragaga Michigan I stopped to get groceries and do laundry. This being the first time all day I was able to get cell service I got online to do some research and to try again to call Dr. Galiani. As luck would have it, I was scheduled to have my semi-annual check up on August 4th and his office called me on Friday to reschedule.  I tried calling my drive in the morning but couldn’t get thru. While doing my research I self diagnosed retina tear and now probably retina detachment. I was going somewhere on Monday, I just didn’t know where.

I was finally able to get in touch with Dr. Galiani while doing laundry. I explained what was going on and I told him where I was. In the absolute middle of nowhere.   The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is 6 hours from any major city. We talked about my options, he said it was not an absolute emergency but if does need to be taken care of this week. He suggested Wills Eye in Philadelphia and I told him I would make my way there in the morning and that I worked for an airline so it would be relatively easy. He give me his cell number and said to give him a call when I knew when I could get there and he would have everything set up. Sounds good to me.

At this point I’m down to about 90% vision loss in my right eye. So... after a 6 how drive to Milwaukee this morning and now sitting in Nashville for 3 hours I’m on my way to Philadelphia to stay in a hotel tonight and go to Wills Eye at 8am tomorrow morning. 

To be continued.........  Stay tuned !

It’s funny some of the thoughts I’m having while waiting for my flight...

Okay which one of my Facebook “friends “ got jealous of all my recent picture post and put a pin in the eye of their voodoo doll. 

After all those years of riding tandems with visually impaired athletes you would think I would have built up some good karma.

Surprisingly I really don’t have any anxiety. It is what it is. I do have trust in the doctors abilities. 

I’ve seen more people in the past 3 hours while sitting in this airport then I’ve seen in the past 3 weeks while on the road. Now that’s anxiety!