Parkinson’s: Oops.! and Oops! And
Oops! and Oops!/And
It was a moment to laugh and to cry at the same time. I bet you've had them. We had gone on an early morning blood draw “date.” I had to fast the night before. Afterwards, we stopped for breakfast for me, and a snack for Steven (which made it an official date!)
Timing my meals has gotten tricky with my medicine's schedule of every 4 hours, hitting the golden hour I can eat is sometimes tough. We were late.
Which meant that the next medicine I took wasn't going to work as well.
Which meant, I was moving OK, while I had my blood drawn and also while I was eating, but I wound down quickly and moved slower and slower and became finally stiff for the hour before the next pill was to be taken...and then...when I took it- that Dang levodopa pill never clicked in!
We drove on to get my license renewed. I had gotten a letter saying I was late renewing my license. And Do Not Drive! (Remember the big 70th birthday back in December? You might not, but it would have been nice if I had. That was the first Oops!)
Well, I haven't been driving, so it wasn't a big deal. But what if, in an emergency, I needed to drive? And isn't the license used as our ID?
When we got to the BMV, I was already starting to slow down. Inside the BMV was pleasant and there was not much of a line. I went up kind of stiffly and when we got to the part where she asked me to do the vision test, I expected to have some trouble. My changing vision has been a challenge for the last couple of years. (I finally found vision described as a symptom of PD the other day!)
We have gone to a PD eye specialist once and to my wonderful eye doctor 4 or 5 times in the past year.
I have got prisms in my glasses to try to combat the new double vision in my left eye. I now have 3 kinds of glasses, one for reading, one pair that does double duty - it is for distance if I look through the top and the bottom part is for the area closer to me and one pair of glasses is for the computer.
I'm having a hard time, remembering to switch the glasses I am wearing, as I switch tasks I am on.
or to bring the extra two pairs with me, as I move from upstairs to downstairs.
Depending on how tired my eyes are, I can find it hard to read now. I spend a lot of my, late night/can't sleep, reading time, with my left eye closed and trying different arm positions to find just the right place for my eyes to be able to read the words in books. Sheesh.
Sooo, now at the BMV, I was having my vision test. She asked me to put my chin in the right spot on the machine and press my forehead against the top to start it. I couldn't seem to get the machine in a right position to turn on. And when she asked me to read a line, I couldn't see any of the lines she meant. We kept at it.
She was very kind and I kept trying. I was puzzled, I was pretty sure beforehand that I would have some trouble, but this was more of a complete fog out.
I couldn' t make out any letters or numbers or whatever they were on the machine.
Finally another lady came over and she tried, but this time with colors and I aced those. And then Steven came over too. She started talking to him, (not me anymore) saying that I would have to have a limit on my license for night driving. But if I got new glasses or whatever, I could come back and test again. We left- with my paper for my new license, that would be coming soon, in hand.
I was in a bit of shock, “Who would give me a license after that performance? “Oh well..,” I thought, “I wasn't planning on driving anyway.”
When we got home, I took off my glasses to rub my tired eyes. That's when I noticed-
I had been wearing my reading glasses all morning
not my long distance glasses.
That was the second Oops!
And Oh how we
laughed.
Cheers,
Nancy and the Snark
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