A few weeks ago, I began to wonder, kind of out of the blue, if it would be worse to be blind or to be deaf. Completing my tax returns, I noticed the boxes where you check “over 65” or “Blind”. You get a higher deduction if you are elderly or sightless. Apparently losing one’s sight is the worst disability; there is no box to check for deafness, or being paralyzed, or having metastatic cancer. Only age, which happens to everyone, and blindness.
I thought about it for awhile, and, with my thankfully limited knowledge, I decided that life would be much more difficult if I lost my sight, but much of the joy of life would be gone if I lost my hearing (especially being a musician and music teacher).
My father was a doctor and my mother was a nurse. We kids were very healthy and rarely went running to them with complaints. I don’t think any of the seven of us were ever successful at faking sick to get out of going to school. We were well indoctrinated (my dad would have loved that pun) in taking care of our own problems and as a result, as a young adult I put off getting some pretty serious health problems taken care of until they had gotten bad, including wrist tendonitis (have had for over 30 years), herniated disk (had surgery and lifelong back issues), severe sinus headaches, and ear problems. Coupled with having either no health insurance or the hospitalization-only-with-extremely-high-deductible type, I was usually my own doctor, along with, eventually, Dr. Google.
In 2019 I began to experience abdominal pain. For the first time in my life, at 59, I took the bull by the horns and got checked out in a timely fashion. I now had good health insurance (thank you, President Obama). I had many tests and was grateful that nothing life-threatening was found, although a solution has not yet been forthcoming.
Flash back to 2010… I began to have dull headaches with vision that was like a light white fog. Dr. Google kept me thinking it was “ocular migraines”, but the final diagnosis, after weeks of this, was angle closure glaucoma. I had two laser surgeries in each eye, and was left with some damage and minor vision loss and the specter of future serious problems. I had also been taking some things that could have contributed to the angle closure, including pseudoephedrine for sinus issues and valerian for a sleep aid.
A few weeks ago, I decided to get a strange combination of problems checked out. I saw my primary caregiver about the sinus headaches, intermittent vertigo, possible hearing loss, and constant, very loud tinnitus (ear noise), with the request to see an ENT. She referred me for an appointment next week. However, in the meantime I had my six month exam with my glaucoma specialist, and he recommended something I had been dreading for years. Eleven years ago he’d said I had baby cataracts, and when the time came to fix them, it would be complicated by a cornea condition that I have. So last week he said it is time, and that I will need, along with cataract surgery, cornea transplants.
The ear problems will have to go back onto the back burner.
And now I am wondering how I began thinking about blindness and deafness before this all began.
Will I have to endure a series of painful operations?
What happens if the transplants fail?
Will I be able to continue my cherished career?
Will I live out my latter years in darkness? In silence?
Inner Voice 