Douglas E. Berry

Hey kids, it's an eye update!

After a long day sitting around at the Eye Institute (several doctors were dealing with emergencies which left them way behind) I finally got to see Dr. M. He was very happy that I don't have cancer, but as he pointed out, this still leaves us in the dark about the cause of the eye inflammation.

So we may be subjecting my poor eyeballs to a cyberpunk-ish horror called Electroretinography. Which actually, sounds pretty interesting, if a bit horrifying for someone as paranoid about their eyes as I am. But for now, we're stepping down the steroid eye drops over an eight-week period. If the inflammation is still under control at that time, we can start scheduling the removal of the cataract from my right eye.

The funny thing is they were so far behind that when I left the front office folks had all gone home. I'll have to call Monday to set up my follow-up.

In other news, I'm rather disappointed in our latest Giants store purchase. I take blood thinners, which means I do not react well to cold weather. So. as you can imagine, night games at Oracle Park are a challenge. What do you think of when you hear the word "anorak"?

As the child of a Brit, and having been raised on British TV, I think of a warm, hooded, bit of rain kit, usually with a half-zipper. So I was thrilled to see one for sale on the Giants' site. Folks, I have T-shirts that are heavier than this. I wore it out today, on a very mild day, and it provided no warmth nor protection from even the slightest wind.

sigh At least it looks good. I'll just wear it as the outer layer as part of my San Francisco Summer Evening arctic survival kit.

This weekend is the annual city-wide clean-up for our area, also known as "dump everything in the street weekend." Our pile will be small but interesting. I may take pictures of the more interesting piles of junk. After the visit from the plumber, and the need to clean out under the sinks, we are also heading over to the Household Hazardous Waste drop off. Busy times.

Next week we'll mark 31 years of marriage with a dinner at the one surviving Black Angus in the South Bay. Then next weekend we're seeing Dance with the Dead with Magic Sword opening. An evening of trippy instrumental music.

This has been your Eyes and More^TM update.

Well, here we are again. Reaching the end of the calendar year for all of us who use the Gregorian Calendar.Of course, given my druthers, it'd be Idibus Decembres MMDCCLXXIV Ab Urbe Condita. But I'm weird that way.

Where are my druthers, anyway? However has them, give them back post-haste!

Anyway, for me, 2021 was dominated not by the political upheaval in Washington, but by my ongoing eye issues. What started as a simple diagnosis of a cataract in my left eye has ballooned into a still-evolving investigation of which my body is showing so many inflammation markers. But getting here has been epic. Because for the first eight months of this I was seeing an ophthalmologist who was very hesitant and unsure of herself. When she finally referred me to a more experienced colleague, it was one visit and surgery scheduled. Everyone assured me that cataract surgery was super easy, barely an inconvenience.

I came out of the surgery blind in my left eye. It was like looking through a cloudy glass brick. This was not the result anyone expected, and I began a brief odyssey of being punted around to different eye doctors before getting a referral (an insurance approval) to the Stanford Eye Clinic. We were told that this appointment could take several hours, but what happened that Friday was, well, special.

After going through all the usual eyedrops, pictures, and tests, we were visited by a succession of escalating doctors, all of whom wanted to confirm that I hadn't eaten that day. Finally, the senior eye surgeon on duty came in and told me that my retina was detaching, and we needed to head over to the Stanford ER to check in for surgery that night. Of course, due to COVID-19, kshandra. couldn't come in with me.

Any ER on a Friday night is going to be an interesting place. Stanford did not disappoint. However, it was also the night the Giants were going for the 100th win of the season, and I couldn't see my phone to follow the game! (They beat Colorado 7-2.) Eventually, They roll me into the ER proper if only so I could charge my phone. After really geeking out over how the ER is run, I'm rolled up to the surgical theater. This is the first time I've entered one in a wheelchair, so I got to really geek out over all the cool shit. The anesthesiologist and I agree on a general, and the last words I hear are "I'm giving you the relaxing medicine now."

The next thing I know it's like 0400 and I'm being rolled out to meet kshandra at the car. The procedure lasted about three hours. What they did was absolutely fucking science fiction. Along with cleaning out the gunk from the failed cataract surgery and resetting the artificial lens, they used FUCKING LASERS to weld the tears in my retina, put a silicon band around my eye to force it back into shape, and injected a gas bubble into my eye to further restore the proper retinal surface. This was out-patient surgery!

What sucked was I had to keep a head-down posture for the next week or so to keep the bubble in place. I listened to a lot of Judge Judy and podcasts at my desk. Things are still not perfect, but we're getting there!

My job continues to be fantastic. The mini-session they had in April-May last spring was weird and sparsely attended as many parents elected to continue distance learning. The new school year is back to regular days and hours, and with the exception of the six-week hole the eye problems blew in my ability to work, I've been happy to get back to my corner and shout in German at my kids. My boss was amazing, finding that I still had hours left in a special COVID-relief time bank, and a few PTO hours, so at least a little money came in during the time off. I'm so happy that I took the chance on becoming a Crossing Guard.

It was a good year for me in baseball. The San Jose Giants, now a Low-A club, won their league championship. The big league team was predicted to finish no better than 3rd in the National League West. What followed was one of the most amazing divisional races in the history of baseball. The Giants won a club-record 107 games, and still only clinched in the last game of the season because our rival Los Angeles Dodgers won 106 games, also a team record. We met in the NLDS and it went to five games, of course. LA won, and I'm not going to make excuses. But what a fucking season!

Due to the pandemic, we didn't get out much. We did make a long-planned trip to Los Angeles to see Avatar at the Wiltern Theater. We made a mini-vacation out of it. We went to the Rainbow Bar and Grill and spent too much money at Lemmy's Lounge. Hey, I'm an old Motörhead fan! We also were able to have dinner with isomeme and her lovely wife and with kshandra's halfsister and her lovely wife and kids.

We also visited the Getty Villa.. I killed my phone taking pictures. It's that amazing.

Then, just a couple of weeks about, we went to the first night of Metallica's 40th Anniversary concert. THEY PLAYED FIXXXER! AND KING NOTHING!!!

So, those are the highlights of 2021 for me. The whole eye thing dominated and continues to shape my life. But there are big changes and events coming in 2022. Which will be the next post! Stay tuned!

An update. While my eye is healing nicely, there are now concerns about lymphoma. So now I'm looking at more labs, a brain MRI, even a lumbar puncture. Please, if you can, anything helps. Sharing this helps!

https://gofund.me/2b080569

Accomplished today, after I spent Monday being a slug.

- All the dishes are done.

- Mopped the kitchen floor, which really needs to be a weekly thing.

_ Got the garbage bins out to the curb after we forgot to do that last night.

- Since I'm going back to work next week, I also got about 3,700 steps and 8 of 10 active hours.

- Tomorrow I'm planning on going down to Central Park for a good, long walk and to see how much water is in Saratoga Creek. Expect video. I',m also going to try to get in vacuuming the entry and the hallway.

- The green "gas bubble in eye" wristband fell off sometime last night. No idea where it landed. It's probably lurking in the bed somewhere.

- Taco Tuesday is about to happen!

The expedition to Fremont and Half-Price Books has been successfully completed. As usual, we found books we wanted that ate half of the redemption value of what we brought in, but the main thing here was clearing shelf space of books we no longer wanted.

I picked up yet another history of Istanbul and an interesting-looking history of the Battle of Lepanto that examines the build-up and consequences of this, one of the pivotal battles in European history.

After leaving Fremont, we came back down to Santa Clara where we stopped at our Denny's for a late brunch, and then. . .

I DROVE HOME!

This is the first time since the first cataract surgery that I've driven Darby the Ford Ranger. I had no issues beyond the fact that I'm wearing glasses with a wildly outdated prescription. I'm still not going on the freeway until my new glasses are ordered and arrive, but knowing I can drive on surface streets is an immense relief and frankly, takes a huge burden off Kirsten.

Well, I'm a bit over a day out from emergency eye surgery. The doctor at the follow-up was very happy with what happened. Me? Healing is a hard process. Currently, my left eye socket is a bit sore and swollen, and I'm tearing up constantly. That's to be expected. I'm also working hard to maintain a head-down position to keep the injected gas bubble in the right place.

And how fucking cool is that? Right now, the is a bubble of gas that was injected into my eyeball to help reshape the eye along with a metal band doing the same job. Lasers have been shot into my eye to weld the retina back into place. Science fucking rocks!

The big drawback is that the eyedrops are burning like shit due to the healing hoping on, and frankly I'm in the "more annoyed than hurting" phase of recovery. But, I'll keep soldiering on, like I always do. The next big milestone is a follow-up very early Thursday morning. I'm very optimistic.

Now the really good news, we've hit our funding goal on the Go Fund Me! But since this was an emergency surgery, there was no time to get authorization, so we're wary of surprise big bills. So we're keeping it open, and do ask that you keep sharing the link. Thank you to everyone who has helped out in this latest crisis.

Fuck fuck fuckity Fuck.

The second eye surgery has been canceled. I need to coordinate with the guy I'm seeing at Stanford Friday for a new date. I'm also now taking ALL THE STEROIDS to manage some inflammation in my left eye.

As you can imagine, this makes things even tighter. Please, please, please, donate if you can, and share the campaign wherever you think it is appropriate.

Thanks for any and all help.