Sight improves; wait continues

(Image by Stock.xchng vi)

I’d been sitting at my laptop for something like 30 minutes on Friday when I noticed something odd about my vision.

I had not removed my regular glasses and replaced them with the cheap reading glasses I’d bought at Walgreens months ago after the vision in my one good eye began to deteriorate.

Something – an email I guess – had caught my attention first, and I’d never changed to the reading glasses. Instead, I had finished perusing my email and was checking the metrics on my blog, among other things, when I realized I still was wearing my regular glasses.

This sure seems to be good news.

A specialist whom I’d seen several times late last year, before I was laid off by Sun-Times Media, had been treating me for the problem, called uveitis. I’d been on a medicine via eye drops since about October, and that had stabilized the eye, although the blurriness had never really eased.

About a week or two after the cataract surgery on my left eye, the surgeon gave me the all clear, and decided to halt the pricey prescription for the uveitis in my right eye, since it appeared to have stabilized.

Within weeks, however, the blurriness worsened, and he referred me back to the original specialist I’d seen for that eye last year. On June 22, that specialist prescribed a steroid, prednisone, which I mentioned in my June 29 post on depression. I was to take two vile-tasting tablets for 10 days (Friday was Day 10), after which I was to cut to one tablet (I did) until I see the specialist again later this month.

Now reduced to half the dose, I hope to sleep better, breathe a little easier and, of course, I hope my eyesight either remains somewhat improved if the improvement does not advance further.

Time will tell, but it is good to say I can see more clearly now.

Moreover, there have been benefits to the sleeplessness brought on by the prednisone, as well.

I had tried building additional pages on this blog to represent a portfolio of my reporting work for BocaJump.com, but I was not happy with the format. So I started a second blog on the same platform but using a different template or design theme.

The new site, ON DEADLINE | Ted Schnell, includes an online version of my resume as well as what I believe have been some of my best reporting for BocaJump.com.