A Thief In The Night

So, here I am back on my blog after a long absence. Got it all spruced up with a new look, paying tribute to my English heritage with the cool red British phone booths. I’ve recently made a decision to start writing again. I thought the phone booths might serve as a visual reminder that I come from good stock. After all, some of the greatest writers, both new and old, are English, i.e., Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Jeffery Archer, etc. Not that I’m from England, but I did trace my linage once and three Plumlee brothers decided to make the trip across the pond to the new world some time during the 18th century. I don’t know why they left the fair island of Albion and I don’t care to know, because the reality of why they left would probably shatter my illusions of coming from good stock. It’s a given that they were probably not aristocracy. But they were English, and that gives me some hope, delusional though it may be.

I never meant to stop writing. It’s just that I got so busy drumming that I had neither the time nor the inclination to do so. Neither did I aim to get that busy drumming; I only started doing it again for physical exercise. I was in truth, getting old and fat, my blood pressure and cholesterol were through the roof. I’ve always been an extremely intense drummer, fancying myself after the likes of Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa, so I figured drumming would help me lose some weight. I lost 40 some-odd pounds and went from a size 41 waist down to a 31. But life is a constant trade off; you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Beating drums with that intensity also means beating them loudly; therefore, while my heart attack risks decreased, my hearing loss increased. So much so, that I can rarely understand what my six and eight year old granddaughters are saying anymore. While I might be young at heart, they surely think of me the “old man” who always asks my wife, “What’d they say?” But, I kept drumming because I like being skinny.

A recent close encounter with blindness made me re-evaluate my decision to drum. On April 14, 2011, I had surgery on my right eye. The doctor inserted a tube in that eye to relieve pressure caused from glaucoma. I had to have this done because I lost quite a bit of eyesight between January of last year and February of this year. Glaucoma is a dastardly deceiving disease; you can coast along for a few years thinking you might not lose anymore vision and then WHAM BOOM BANG, it steals a bunch of eyesight when you’re not looking for it to happen. That’s why they call it a thief in the night.

Looking back at it now, I suppose the surgery was successful; the pressure in my right eye, the one my doctor put the tube in, is down to nine, which is where she wanted it. But for the first several weeks after surgery, my vision was extremely blurry in my right eye. Imagine squirting KY Jelly in your eye and maybe you’ll get a clue as to what half of my world looked like. I’ve lost about a third of the vision in my other eye and that was all I had left to navigate my way through this world. I spent weeks stumbling over the toys my granddaughters left in the floor at our house, and trying to listen for the sounds of people’s voices or footsteps as I made my way through Wal-Mart, so as not to run straight into them. It was a rude reminder that I’m slowly going blind and that I also have progressive hearing loss. I joked with my doctor once that I was on the Helen Keller Highway. She worriedly replied, “Please don’t joke about that.” Sometimes I think she’s more worried about me ending up being blind and deaf than I am. She says I have one of the worse cases of glaucoma she’s ever seen. It’s a blinding disease. I hate to be a fatalist, but unless God intervenes, which He might do since I’m such a lovable guy, I will go blind unless I get drunk and fall off a cliff first. My hearing loss is more speculative, no one knows for sure why I keep losing hearing. But one thing’s for sure, beating drums like a madman is like playing Russian roulette with the main sense I will have to depend on when I do go blind. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that drumming will only hasten my hearing loss.

So that’s it, I’m through, I quit drumming! Fate has forced me to return to writing. To be truthful, I’ve felt guilty for drumming for quite sometime now. I knew I was hurting my hearing, and I also knew I was neglecting my other gift, writing; the one I went to school for and got a degree in journalism. I believe that willful neglect made me bitter, mean and angry. In the past three to four years, I’ve been way too quick to challenge to a facebook duel anyone who opposed my political views. But that’s fodder for a later post. So I hope you and I both enjoy the foolish words that follow.

Cheerio.

Game Changer

It's a strange thing to fear putting up the dishes. My doctor said I'm to be a couch potato. My latest surgery for glaucoma hasn't worked out so well. It was two weeks ago yesterday. I've had severe pain, more then I've ever remember, and I haven't been able to see well out of my right eye. I nearly lost my vision completely in that eye a week ago. The doctor had to do emergency surgery because my eye was leaking fluid.

But today, I was finally seeing better. My wife and I got up in the wee hours of the morning and watched the Royal wedding. I bragged about being able to see better out of my right eye. And the pain seems to have nearly disappeared. This is where stupidity comes into play. I told myself that since I've turned this miraculous corner, I'll take the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and put them away. I was careful not to bend over because my doctor has ordered me not to. She also said I'm not to pick up anything heavier then 10 pounds. I told myself I'd use my brain, not my brawn. I sat in a chair and reached over into the dishwasher, slowly getting one glass at a time, then a bowl, then a plate, until I had emptied the dishwasher. I had no intentions of over straining myself or overdoing it. But human nature, being the productive beast that it is, took over. I started rationalizing. Since it was okay to pick up one plate, why not pick two at a time, then three, then four. I was careful not to bend over, so how could hit hurt to have a hand full of plates. It'd save time. No harm. Piece of cake. All is well.

But then suddenly, without warning, I noticed my right eye is extremely blurry again. Why am I such a fool?

My friends don't understand how precarious my situation is. I look well enough. At least, I think I look good. So, I'm sure I look good to them. They must think I'm lazy. Several musician friends of mine want me to play music with them. I can see that questioning look in their eyes when I tell them my doctor says I'm not supposed to do anything. They think I'm a hypochondriac. A fellow musician came right out and told me so on the phone recently. He confided in me that another musician had called him, inquiring about me and my health problems.

"He's alone at home all day," he told our friend. "He's bored and concentrates on his health more then the rest of us who have a job. It's hard for him not to be a hypochondriac. He's got nothing else to do."

I sat there, holding the phone, listening to a long-time friend tell me that he told another friend I'm a hypochondriac, and I'm thought, "Damn, I don't need this shit." But I didn't say it.

That phone call took place a few weeks before my surgery. But I catch myself thinking about it again today when I realize I've put my eyesight at risk by the mere, small act of putting up a few dishes. I find myself wishing my friend were correct. I wish I was a hypochondriac. But whether I am or not, his conversation was a real game changer. I'll never be the same. I'll never put myself in a position I should not be in again. My life is about to change.

Savor Each Second

Now that darkness is starting to close in, I feel a real need to latch on to reality. I even feel guilty whenever I drank too much wine because with blurred vision comes blurred memory. And now that I've lost more eyesight once again, I want to savor every second, every sight, every smell, every taste.