I am aging too quickly. First, I get cancer, and then I have major surgery and spend my recovery next door to senile bed-alarmed patients. Later, I lose the use of my left arm and have to relearn how to walk, sit, get up from bed, etc… Then I lose my ability to legally drive (for a year at least). Today, I learned that I need bifocals. This is not due to my death-defying theatrics, but is a problem I had before all the commotion.
I went to see a specialist, a neuro-opthomologist named Dr. Rosen. He was a laid-back retro-looking and humorous man with a New Yorker accent. He said that all the problems from the surgery seemed to have cleared up: my right eye is tracking normally, its peripheral vision is back, and its blurriness gone. I’m sure that Dr. Rosen’s time is valuable and his fees expensive. Good thing I went to see him. Toward the end, he got out a couple of lenses and put them in front of my eyes as I read a magazine. It was instantaneous, palpable relief. My eyes often feel strained when I read, but no eye doctor before had broached the bifocal idea. Apparently youth can be a barrier to some things.
But the best part happened on the ride home. I complained of getting old much too quickly to my husband. Now, before diagnosis Jon often would joke that I am the “wife of his youth.” Today, he stated that if this was true, he might have to “put me away” a little earlier than he’d originally planned. I asked him if we were so far removed from the seriousness of cancer that it was okay to dredge up this old joke again. It is, and relieved laughter followed from both of us. However, I still maintain that he should at least wait until his mid-life crisis before he starts looking for the wife of his old-age. As one who already seems to fit the bill, I hope I qualify.
Ha! My brother knows exactly how lucky he is to have you, bifocals or no!
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