“Guess what?” Lyndie wrote in an email on January 28, barely six weeks before her departure on the Danube cruise. “I have macular degeneration now, like a regular old person!! … Trying not to get depressed. Love, Outrageous Average Older Woman #7659496854602”
Macular degeneration is one of the main causes of vision loss in older people. Its consequence is a gradual loss of detail in the central visual field, although peripheral vision, around the edges, may remain normal. The speed of its progression varies from person to person.
(The images below, provided by the American Academy of Ophthalmological Surgeons, show what it is like.)
This could indeed be her last travel adventure. Mercifully, she will complete it in time to see what she is experiencing.
For many years, Lyndie has had the use of only one eye. Now more than ever, the specter of blindness troubles Lyndie. But she has faced it nearly all her life. Some of her earliest memories involve misery:
I was a very funny-looking girl, with my big brown, crossed eyes, my grandmother Golda’s auburn hair and (perhaps) my father’s impulsivity…
Crossed eyes, lazy eye, are extremely common problems, ordinarily corrected in more cases than not by your friendly neighborhood ophthalmologist! In my case, not so easily.
The break-up and divorce of my parents, plus the war (World War II) may have prevented immediate intervention. Anyhow, by the time my mother had a new man, an infant son and a 2-year-old cross-eyed daughter on her hands, I guess it was deemed essential to DO something.
A series of surgeries began, in hopes of fixing me. One took place in St. Francis Hospital, where I was born, another in St. Mary’s Hospital, another in Stanford University Children’s Hospital — 6 surgeries in all. My eye doctor was Dr. Horner, a very respected guy.
In the hospitals, I was mostly terrified and angry. I struggled wildly each time I was strapped down to the operating table. (Was there no sedative for small children in such cases?) I acutely recall the mask being clamped to my face, the ghastly smell of ether for a couple of seconds before the lights went out.
Waking later, my eyes bandaged, horribly thirsty, horribly nauseated, I thought I could not be more miserable. Not even ice chips, like they offer nowadays! But a wonderful memory out of all that: in St. Mary’s Hospital, a gentle nun, our nurse, brought me a vanilla milkshake when I complained of thirst.
Of course it tasted heavenly! Of course it came right back up! Sister gently cleaned up the mess and brought me another, because I was still thirsty–and hungry, from the fasting before surgery. And of course it came right back up!
But it’s a precious lesson in the possibilities of compassion. I will never forget that nurse, or those milkshakes. I was 4 or 5 years old.
Following another surgery I woke in the high-sided bed (crib) designed to keep me from wandering, I suppose? I needed to pee quite urgently. I called, over and over, for help. The room (pediatric unit) was only dimly lighted.
After a long time, someone came, but too late. At over 6 years of age I had wet the bed! I was terribly ashamed. I was sharply scolded as my sheets were changed.
Every Friday I got excused from school early to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to see Dr. Horner and have my eyes checked, and have the adhesive patch ripped off (it was supposed to be less painful than having it peeled off slowly). Sometimes the tape was stuck in my hair.
One time when my mother came to see me in the hospital after a surgery, I remember feeling miserable, my eye bandaged and hurting. I told my mother to go away. I was terribly angry. She told me afterwards that she was terribly hurt.
In the years that followed, my good eye was patched much of the time. My weak left eye seemed to have no really usable vision.
So I was virtually blind and kind of stumbled all around. Went barefoot a lot so I could feel the ground better. Looked like a freak in school, made worse by the fact that I wrote, left-handed, in perfect mirror writing (right to left) without effort or realizing it was backward.
Imagine my delight when I learned years later that Leonardo da Vinci, also an artist, also left-handed, wrote from right to left (mirror style) just like me! But it must have bothered my teachers a lot.
I was guided through eye exercises, in a screen with pictures of (for example) a tree. Is there rain coming down on the tree or not? What is the little boy holding in his hand? What kind of animal is in the picture? A cat? a dog? I feared failing the tests–more surgery? A lifetime of patches?
I have no depth perception–could never parallel-park. Have learned to see in other ways, perhaps, like Graciana?
Nowadays the left eye is legally useless. I can still write in mirror fashion, effortlessly. Sometimes I write my son a letter that way. I suspect it’s the only thing about me he finds amazing.
Yesterday when I had my vision checked I flinched helplessly when the drops were put in–after ALL these years. I still cannot get over my fear of having my eyes touched. The optometrist is very gentle and understanding. He knows some of my history.
“Do you suppose all this could partly explain your willingness to commit most of your savings to accompany Graciana on that cruise two years ago?” I asked.
“Probably,” she replied.