Leaky Eyes

We’re having eye problems. Well not “we” exactly, Sweetie is, to be more exact.

She had laser surgery last Tuesday evening to repair torn retina in her eye. On the last night of the final day of Ike’s cast, Sweetie was having trouble getting his pants up over his butt and in one swift motion, she lost hold of his waistband and smacked herself full on her eyeball with her knuckle.

I recommend not trying this at home.

The surgery seemed to go well and her vision was just starting to clear when Saturday morning it all went south again. A blood vessel had started to leak into her eye, obscuring her vision. Imagine a big black goober everywhere you look and you kind of get the idea. Saturday things got a little bit scary. Not much they could do about it. There was too much blood to try and use the laser to cauterize the bleeding. Things just kept getting worse and by Sunday morning she couldn’t see anything.

This issue is compounded by the fact that she has no central vision in her other eye due to an unrelated surgery she had to have 15 years ago. So right now she’s getting around on the peripheral sight she has left in that eye. She spent most of Sunday in bed sleeping and depressed, hoping that if she lay with her head under the pillow this would, like a bad dream, all have disappeared. By Monday she was starting to feel more like her old self and was starting to feel like perhaps it had gotten a bit better.

The eye doctor said that she didn’t think it had gotten worse since Saturday night and that the laser part of the surgery still looked good and the retina was intact. So now we just wait. The doctor thinks it’ll be a couple weeks before things clear up enough for her to see. Right now she can’t drive, read or watch TV. She can see enough to do the big things, like not bump into furniture, change diapers and things like that but none of the finer things.

At this point it’s really a waiting game. Hopefully by the end of the week we’ll have a better idea of where this is going and what our next course of action will be.

I think I learned a lesson last week. Don’t ever say you’re tired in print. The world always seems to have a way of kicking your ass one step further than you’d ever care to go.

Peeing blood

My cat was peeing blood around the kitchen floor while we were out Saturday afternoon. Little drops the size of a silver dollar. We were at a bon voyage party for Sweetie's niece before she and her new beau set off for sea trials on the ship he captains. From there it’s on to San Francisco and then to Mexico.

Our cat, Zane, is an old girl, a little over fifteen and blind. She had been missing the litter box as of late and most mornings this past week I woke up to find a puddle of urine on the kitchen linoleum.

I packed her up and took her to the 24-hour animal hospital down off South Tacoma Way. They did the check up, gave her a shot and some medicine to take home and said to call our vet on Monday. So far in the last few years I have taken both of my sons, both my cats and my neighbor to the emergency room. I told Sweetie that I’d had just about enough of being the crisis chauffer and have no interest in making it a clean sweep with her being the last to go. Not that I wouldn’t drive her, I would, but enough is enough already.

Cookie Grandma took the oldest boy to the circus on Sunday. She had a friend in town, who thinks our boy is the cats meow and who thought between the two of them, the circus would be a grand outing. It started better than it finished, with in the end, both having to grab hold of a hand and drag him kicking and screaming back to the car. He had actually wanted to go about an hour earlier but couldn’t convince the ladies that this was a good idea. By the time the circus had ended, the death spiral had already begun and when at last the tropical depression had come to a standstill in front of our house, all parties were looking overwrought and more than a little strung out.

The littlest boy is back to getting a continuous feeding drip during the night. This is due to the fact that he continues to keep throwing up after meals because of his refulux issues. Issues that we think are compounded by his weakened state due at least in part, to the surgery he had last month. We met with the enteral supply company on Monday and last night got the whole thing set up and so far it has seemed to go just fine. The good news is that Ike should be getting his cast off later today. I know I said in previous forum that it had been removed and in fact it had. We had it off for the whole Labor Day weekend but he wound up being so uncomfortable that they put another one on the following Tuesday.

Sweetie hit herself in the eye so hard last night that she’s worried she might have done some damage. She’s only really got one good eye as it is and of course that was the eye she smacked. After Ike gets back from getting his cast off, she goes in to see the eye doctor.

Took Zane into the vet this morning where I had to leave her due to the need to collect a urine specimen for analysis. The likely cause of the blood is a urinary tract infection for which we are giving her antibiotics. I’m hoping we’ll be able to pick her up later this afternoon but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

We were also hoping to get the Puyallup fair this afternoon but right now I’m not sure how that’s going to be possible. I guess I’ll have a better idea once I find out:

a)How Sweeties eye is doing.
b)How comfortable is Ike with his cast off.
c)Can Zane come home from the vet or does she need to stay overnight?
d)Has the fish the cleaning lady moved to my parent’s bathtub died yet?

Of course I haven’t had the chance to talk about d) yet. The folks are out of town on vacation and had asked me to come and check in on their place, feed the fish, take in the mail and the like. I get a call from the cleaning woman on Saturday saying that she had removed the sick fish from the tank and placed it into the bathtub, so when I come by the house could I check on that fish as well and if it’s died to just go ahead and throw it in the garbage.

Fuck

I’m just so tired. Not the kind of tired from lack of sleep necessarily, though I’m sure having the older boy climbing into bed to kick me all night doesn’t help, but more along the lines of an old dog going for a walk kind of tired. Like I have tired bones.

Film Work

Throughout most of the nineties I worked as a film electrician, running lights and power for a number of forgettable films, movies of the week, TV pilots and commercials. There was a small band of us, maybe 15 in all that would vie for the few positions available when a new movie would come to town. I was not on the A list. Not that I was a bad electrician. I could hold my own with most of them, even working as a Best Boy on a few low budget films, but I just never managed to get that one connection that would catapult me to the you’re-my-first-call-when-I-get-to-town kind of spot on the list.

In truth I didn’t mind so much. There was, for a while, plenty of work up here in the Northwest and I even managed to make a decent living at it for a time. But I think down deep I knew that my heart was not set on lugging 90 pound coils of 4/0 around a soccer field at two a.m. to establish a “ring of fire” because we had no real idea of what they were going to shoot, or where, or what sort of power they might need. In truth, I’m sure other people could see it in me as well, which no doubt helped to solidify my position closer to the middle of the pack then near the top.

When the oldest boy was born I knew that my days doing that kind of work were all but over. Seattle was no longer the darling of the LA set. Most of the major studios found that working up in Canada afforded them a similar look at a fraction of the price. The work was drying up and some of the electricians I knew were making the move down south to California. I also knew I could never do that. I had had my fill of the LA-cowboy-machostud-surfdude the few times the studios agreed to ship them up here to finish the film. I didn’t want to live in LA and they didn’t want to shoot in Washington and that was pretty much that.

In some ways, movies allow you the to put the post college what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life decisions in the back closet for a few years to hang like an old coat waiting for winter. I guess that’s the appeal really. A few more years to set aside the maxim, “everyday life always happens someplace else.”

Bumber Crops

The Prairie Dogs have been playing a lot lately. More than I’m used to at any rate. Played last Thursday night up in Seattle at the Rendezvous Jewel Box Theater, a bar that is run by my sister-in-law’s sister and husband. We had played the Friday before that at Kings Coffee here in town and this Friday we’ll be playing at Shakabrah Java up on 6th avenue filling in for a last minute cancellation they had.

Our oldest boy starts school tomorrow. There’s a full time Montessori preschool program here in town that looks really great so we signed him up. He turns five in November so he’s too young for kindergarten, but really too old to just do daycare two times a week. We’ve been crossing off the days on the calendar and he’s raring to go. Sweetie, Ike and myself are taking him tomorrow morning where they have something called “Coffee and Kleenex”. I imagine it’ll be hard to see him go.

Speaking of Ike, he got his cast off Friday and he’s none to pleased about the whole thing let me tell you. Yes it’s true he didn’t like the cast and irritated his skin but this whole thing about being able to move his stiff and sore leg has really pissed him off. To make matters worse his regular doctor wasn’t there and after an hour wait the doctor who was there said he “felt uncomfortable” taking the cast off with out our doctor giving him the ok. That would have meant not getting the cast off until today, a prognosis that I was less than eager to accept. I stood there. I looked displeased. I didn’t say much. I didn’t let him leave. He changed his mind. By Sunday Ike was sitting in his chair without discomfort and only really let you have it when his diaper needed to be changed.

Sunday there was a wedding to attend. Sweetie and I got a babysitter for the day and at ten in the morning, set out for Concrete Washington which lies north-east of Sedro-Wooly, of Arlington, Everett and the Skagit Valley. From Tacoma it takes about three hours to get there. It was one of the few overcast days we’ve had this summer, at times raining but mostly just heavy clouds that looked menacing. The wedding took place on the lawn looking over the valley, though for some reason the ceremony was turned around and we found ourselves looking into the trees. Perhaps the minister needed something to look at to inspire her. It was, like most weddings of people we know, a very nice, short and easy to stomach service. The bride looked beautiful, the groom handsome, people wept in the appropriate places and a good time was had by all.

Yesterday I picked the ripe tomatoes off of the vines and thought about how the days are getting shorter. The sunflower forest I grew this year has grown up higher than our fence, than our garage and the lilac bush that sits in the back corner of the yard. Cecil who turns 93 this year and is not doing that well, can see them from his living room window as can Heather and Earl who live across the way on the other side of our garage.

This year I’m making chutney out of the tomatoes we don’t eat. It looks like we’re gonna have a bumper crop so be sure to stop by and get some if you get the chance.