Diagnosis: Dry Eye Syndrome with Recurrent Corneal Erosion

Okay who thinks this post is about Walter's eyes - show of hands? I'm afraid not this time.

A couple months ago I wrote about my fear of putting eye drops in my eyes. I was trying to get over that because I was having a problem with pain and dryness in my eye and knew that at some point I must go to the eye doctor - something I always dread.

I've been doing pretty well the last 6 weeks putting in artificial tear drops twice a day. I no longer need to lie down, I can do it sitting up or standing. But I still have to put the drops in the corner of my eye with the eye closed and then open the eye and blink to distribute the drop. My anxiety level has decreased though.

My eyes have continued to feel dry and itchy. The last straw was yesterday morning. Yesterday I woke up, opened my eyes and experienced severe pain in the right one. Yowsa! Upon hearing my yell Walter asked “what did you step on?” I replied “Nothing, I just opened my eye!”

This has happened 3 or 4 times in the recent past. It’s quite painful at first and gets slightly better after putting about 10 drops of artificial tears in the eye. But it remains uncomfortable for the rest of the day. Walter suggested that maybe my eyes were so dry my eyelid was sticking to the cornea.

This morning I went to the eye doctor and sure enough, Walter was right! I have dry eye syndrome and sometimes when I open my eye in the morning the lid is stuck and it scratches the cornea when I open it - hence the recurrent corneal erosion.

The solution? Lots of artificial tear eye drops (3 or 4 times a day), more breaks from the computer screen, and putting an ointment in my eye before I go to bed. An ointment??! Yes. The doctor said if I really can't do it to let him know and he will prescribe more of a gel type eye drop, but the ointment would be most successful.

He's a very patient doctor and showed me some great tips for getting the drops and ointment in there. I'm going to give it a try. Not waking up in severe pain will be worth it. Wish me luck.

Mom Took a Tumble

My Mom had been doing pretty well until last Wednesday. Her energy was increasing and she was feeling a bit more energetic with each passing week. The only remaining issue I was worried about was her underweight problem. She doesn't eat enough and is having a hard time gaining weight back after losing so much to pain medication that made her nauseous. At her last appointment she weighed in at 88 pounds. Since her back surgery she has not needed the awful pain medication and I had hopes she would start regaining some weight. But progress on this front is very slow. In other respects she has been pretty healthy. As I said, until Wednesday...

Mom uses a walker to navigate around her home and she does quite well with it. When we take her out to the store or doctor appointments she has been using a cane with some extra support of either my hand on the other side or leaning on the edges of countertops or grocery store carts. She can go a short distance on her own with her cane but not too far. For that reason she is not supposed to leave her house to go down the driveway and get her own mail at the street. She waits for Tyler next door to bring her mail.

Of course sometimes she gets impatient, and she has been feeling more energetic. A couple weeks ago she told me she was going to try and get her own mail. I asked her not to do that because it's too far for her to be walking on her own with just the cane. She told me "I think I can make it!" That was not confidence inspiring to me and I reiterated that I wanted her to wait for the neighbors to bring the mail.

Last Tuesday Mom was done being patient and she went out to get her own mail. She knew I would not approve so she did not tell me she did that. On Tuesday she was successful getting out to the mailbox and back and into the house on her own. On Wednesday she was not successful. After she got her mail on Wednesday she returned to the house only to fall on the top of the two small steps before reaching her front door.

When I called her late Wednesday afternoon (as I do every afternoon) I asked how her day was. She told me everything was just fine. I happened to ask if she got her mail okay (meaning did the neighbors get it to you). She said "Yes, I got it." Then she paused. And she said "I went out and got it myself." What?!! I became alarmed. I asked "Mom, was that a good idea??" She said "Well no, because I fell." WHAT?!!

She told me that she fell hard on her left side and she was afraid that she had broken her hip. Mom has no fat padding her bones and I think her left hip hit the corner of the cement step pretty hard. She told me she was sure now that she had not broken the hip because she could walk around on it okay. She also skinned up her knee and elbow pretty good. I made her an appointment to get checked out at the doctor's office on Monday (yesterday).

By Monday she said her hip was hurting more and her left leg was quite painful to step on. It's really hard to judge how injured someone is by what they say on the telephone. When I saw her move I realized this was not just a little bump. She was having a difficult time moving around.

The doctor's office took x-rays and today we received the result that her hip is not broken. Of course x-rays sometimes do not show everything. If none of her bones are broken she should start feeling better soon. We will give her a few days to start getting better, but if it's not better by next week I will have to take her back to the doctor for further tests. We can't have this getting worse because Mom can't take any pain medication stronger than Tylenol without some dire consequence.

We're sure hoping this is a temporary setback and Mom can once again make a turnaround in the direction of health. In the meantime, she has promised to wait for the mail to be delivered by the neighbors from now on. I sure hope she does!

Mom at the Foot Doctor's

A week or so ago Mom had her regular appointment with the foot doctor. When she arrives in the treatment room she removes her socks and shoes then gets into the recliner where they will work on her feet.

After she got in the chair I noticed how she had hung her purse on her cane and her shoes and socks were waiting nearby. Everything looked so tidy. It occurred to me that would make a good photo so I got out my camera. While I had my camera out I also took a picture of Mom in the chair waiting to have her feet examined and worked on. I thought I would share these pics with you.

New Year's Day - Hoppin' John and Fun at Nikka's House

Walter and I had a fun time visiting with our friends Wayne, Michelle and Nikka on New Year's Day. Walter was feeling slightly better than the night before so he was able to come along for the fun. (Yay!)

I have long appreciated the southern tradition of eating a dish called Hoppin' John (blackeyed peas and rice) on New Year's Day for good luck. I made the dish on New Years quite a few times, but not consistently every year. We did not have Hoppin' John on New Years 2007 and in retrospect I wish we had. :) So this year I was determined to remedy that.

I made a nice big pot of Hoppin' John and some honey cornbread and took it to Wayne and Michelle's house in Maple Valley. They had never tasted Hoppin' John before but it seemed to be a hit. We had a great time eating and visiting.

Wayne and Michelle's daughter Nikka (hard to believe she is almost 6!) has recently discovered the hula hoop. I asked her to show off her hula hoop skills for my camera, and she did not disappoint. As you will see on this video the first time she swung the hoop it went around 2 or 3 times then fell. That was the warm-up. Then she swung it again - in the opposite direction this time. The hoop went round and round ... and round ... and round.... Nikka was keeping that hoop up like a champ! I counted over 20 revolutions. Way to gooooo Nikka!



I also got a video of their dog Chip's latest trick - he can crawl!



Thanks for the hospitality Wayne and Michelle. Walter and I had a great time.

New Year's Eve - Meeting Niko

I'm afraid I've been slow to get things posted here on the blog. I have several posts "in my head" but I know you can't read them there. Life is busy so I'll just have to put things up as I can find time. Sorry to make you wait.

We had a very nice New Year's Eve. At least I did. Walter was pretty sick with a cold and had to stay home. My sister Pitas invited us to come to their New Year's Eve party. I knew their whole family would be there and I couldn't turn down an opportunity to go visit at least for a while. It was my first chance to meet Niko, my great-nephew (Boyboy's son).

Niko is an adorable and very well behaved 6 month old. It was great to see him, his parents, Pam, and everybody else.

Niko loves to pull himself up from a lying down position. His dad holds out two fingers, Niko grabs on, and up he goes. Of course I got it on video:



I also took quite a few pictures of the family and of Obet's Christmas lights. You can click on the photo of Niko and me above to get to the album and use the Next and Prev buttons to navigate.

No Filipino party is complete without great food. I ate just a little, wanting to go home and have dinner with Walter. Pitas and Obet were very generous and packed up "a plate" for Walter since he couldn't come with me. The plate was more than one and ended up being plenty of food for both of us to have a nice dinner when I returned home.

Thank you Pitas and Obet and family for your wonderful hospitality. It was great to see you all!

And I hope all of you had a fun New Year's Eve as well.

Happy New Year - Setting Goals?

This will be my last post of 2007 as I will be away from the computer tomorrow. I hope you all have a wonderful New Year. Please have a fun but safe celebration.

Do you set New Year resolutions? I don't know about the idea of resolutions. They sound so "all or nothing" and it's no wonder most of them fall by the wayside within a few days or weeks. But I am in favor of setting goals. The first of the year is as good a time as any to do that.

If you are looking for a place to list your goals and maybe track your progress I recommend 43Things. I've been a member there for a couple of years and I find the user community to be very helpful and supportive. You can write entries about your goals - or not. And it's fun to cheer other people on.

Just today I found another site that's great for figuring out your goals for the year keeping them in line with your values and what's important to you. It's in the form of an online workshop which took me about an hour or so to go through. I found it to be a worthwhile exercise. If you are interested go here and check it out.

What were the results of my online workshop? Well my top goal came out "declutter my home." Big surprise. :)

Happy New Year!

Pre-Christmas Gathering

Since our family is not able to get together on Christmas Day we gathered on Sunday the 23rd instead. It's not often that I and my two sisters get together all at the same time as everyone lives in different parts of the state. Of course our meeting place was at Mom's house in Lacey. It was great to see everyone.

My nephew DJ took this photo of Walter, me, Diega, Jozi and Mom. If you would like to see some of the other photos taken that day click on the picture and use the Next and Prev links to navigate the album.

Walter's Eyesight Not So Great

Walter had an eye doctor appointment this afternoon. He last saw his doctors 4 weeks ago. Since then he has experience a further decline of his eyesight. For a couple weeks he was seeing floaters but those have mostly cleared up. The biggest issue right now is what seems to be a fog over whatever he sees.

How does this affect Walter? At this point he has almost no night vision left. And in normal indoor lighting he sometimes becomes disoriented - something that was not a problem for him before.

Over the last several months since Walter can no longer see the big E on the eye chart there is another method they use to measure his sight. A technician positions herself across the room from Walter and holds up a certain number of fingers on her hand. Walter has to tell her how many fingers are being held up. They move the hand closer until Walter can see it. A month or so ago Walter could count the fingers correctly around 8 feet away (that distance is my own rough guess). Today Walter was only able to identify the number of fingers when they were about 2-1/2 feet away from him.

The doctor examined Walter's eye carefully. The good news is his eye pressure is normal now - about 18. And the retina looks good. But there is some inflammation in the eye and that's the only thing the doctor could see that might be causing the problem. The solution (we hope) is to increase his dose of prednisolone from once a day up to 3 times a day. He doesn't go back for another 5 weeks unless there are further problems.

We're wishing for a good result from the increased prednisolone. It's hoping and praying time now.

A White Christmas

Walter and I spent Christmas Day in Lacey with my Mom followed by a visit to my friend Sue who lives in West Olympia. Turns out that was a great place to enjoy the Christmas SNOW that fell on Western Washington. It's rare for it to snow here on Christmas Day. I read the last time it happened was in 1996.

The snow started coming down as we were driving down to Olympia. It was predicted to be "snow flurries" and nothing really sticking more than an inch, so we weren't too worried about driving in it. When snow first starts to fall it doesn't make much impact on the ground. I was pleasantly surprised to see the snow continue to fall for a couple hours after we arrived at Mom's house. Then it stopped.

I was afraid our snow dusting was over without anything really sticking, when it started back up again. Sometimes it was light and sometimes it was as though someone dumped it from a bucket. By 5:30 when we left Mom's to go visit Sue it was sticking pretty good. I was surprised to find that snow was covering not only the grass but also the freeway when we set out for West Olympia. It was significant enough people were driving quite slowly. That's a good thing. When we got to Sue's neighborhood we slid around a bit, but arrived safely. There was over an inch on the streets by then.

We made it home safely to Seattle with our "White Christmas" memories in tow.

This 15 second video is an attempt to capture the snowfall through my Mom's kitchen window. It never shows up on video quite the way it appears to the naked eye. But you can see how halfway through the video the snowfall rate picks up dramatically. That's how it went - light, then suddenly heavy for a while. You can't see the temperature on that thermometer in the window but it was around 34-35 degrees Fahrenheit. Just barely cold enough to be snow instead of rain.

If you were in Western Washington did you enjoy our "White Christmas"? It didn't last long, but it was so pretty coming down.

Home - Merry Christmas!

This is that wonderful time of year when so many of us head home - either in body or spirit. For me home is wherever my loved ones are. Walter and I will be spending Christmas Day with my Mom in Olympia.

About a year ago I came upon this wonderful video entitled "Home" by Happy Slip. I've been waiting a year to share it with you. There are some delightful scenes in it that made me smile and I hope they do the same for you.



Where is home for you? Wherever is your home and wherever you will be spending the holidays, I wish you all the season's best including a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Meet Ally

A couple years ago I wrote about my brother-in-law Bill who is very talented with pieces of wood and carving implements not to mention sandpaper and paint. Bill has continued to hone his skills and he has developed into quite the artist.

I heard from my mother that Bill was working on an alligator. He had shown it to her when the carving was done but before he painted it. When I was in Olympia on Monday he brought over the finished product to show me. He had spent 10 hours on painting alone. If you click on the pictures below you can see them up close. He did the tiny speckled effect with a toothpick. The white paint is luminescent so it glows in the dark.

I think it's fun to examine Bill's artwork closely because there are always details that you wouldn't expect. The alligator's eyes are pretty bloodshot, and if you were to look closely at the teeth you would see they have a little blood on them too. I'm not sure why the pupils are 9's, but I'm sure there is some significance there. He thought about carving toes but that would have made them fragile so he thought it better to paint on the toes.

Bill tells me he has several more projects in progress including a 6 foot tall dragon. For each piece he can tell you where he found the piece of wood and what kind it is. It is amazing to me that someone could look at a boring piece of stump or branch and see something of beauty waiting to be revealed.

You have quite the talent, Bill. Keep up the great work!

Hot Cocoa Party at Elliott's House

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of paying a visit to my little friend Elliott and his mom and dad Cynthia and Doxey. We had wonderful hot cocoa (Ghirardelli's!) and some yummy banana bread that Cynthia made.

Elliott showed me this special ornament he made in daycare/school. If you look closely at the picture you can see the ornament is a small frame with a picture of Elliott inside. The frame itself has special sparkly glitter that Elliott added himself (with a little help from his dad).


Elliott's parents used to take monthly birthday pictures of Elliott sitting in the "big red chair" next to Samuel, his teddy bear friend. Lately, however, it's been difficult to get Elliott to stop moving long enough to sit up next to Samuel. We made a few attempts to get the sitting pose last night, but Elliott has a little too much energy to just sit where you put him. Instead I got a few prone shots of the squirmy wormy boy with his more sedate bear. I like this one.


To cap the evening off I had to get a picture of the family Christmas tree. The branches start nice and low to the ground so Elliott can enjoy it too.


To see more pictures from the evening just click here and use the Next or Prev links to navigate the album. There are also a few more pictures over at Elliott's blog.

Thank you to Elliott and his mom and dad for having me over. It was a fun time!

Visit to Cabela's

Last Tuesday night on our way home from Lacey we stopped at the new Cabela's store. It's the first Cabela's outfitters' store in Washington state, and what a store it is! The chain got its start catering to hunters and fishermen but has expanded to include gear for lots of outdoors activities. They also have lots of great outdoor appropriate clothing if you're looking for something special to keep you warm and dry.

The place is huge. For me it was more like a tourist attraction than a store. Right in the middle is a great big man-made mountain. And all over this mountain are stuffed animals, taxidermy style. We saw several kinds of deer, wild turkeys, a musk ox, bears, a sea lion, beavers, a moose, and a bunch more animals that I can't remember. Underneath the mountain there is a small aquarium containing trout.

On the upstairs level you will find a safari area where they have an elephant, zebra, lion, and other African animals. Also on the second floor you will find an archery shooting range and a deli/restaurant. The deli is an interesting visit in itself serving up such delicacies as elk, ostrich, venison bratwurst and bison bratwurst. I had a wild boar sandwich. No, it didn't taste like chicken ... it tasted like ham! If you are not an adventuresome eater, not to worry. They also have "regular" food like turkey, roast beef and chicken salad sandwiches not to mention chili dogs and pizza by the slice.

We had a fun time looking around and visiting one corner called the "general store" where I purchased some homemade fudge to take home (yum!). Were also looked at some of the prepackaged "outdoor survival" food for our emergency kits. It was interesting to me that a high percentage of food that is considered "outdoor survival" is actually some form of candy. Except for the fudge we managed to resist.

If Cabela's sounds like a fun place to you, I really recommend you give it a visit when you are in the area.

Of course I brought my camera and took a bunch of pictures so I could share with all of you. Here is a little slideshow for you.



Visit to Cabela’s 12/07