I am facing an uncertain future, ever since my optician told me that I have the beginnings of macular degeneration. In case you didn’t know, it is the degeneration of the retina which causes light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye to, well, deteriorate. The end of it is blindness. In the meantime the vision in the centre of my eyes will worsen, until all I will see is around the sides. Dame Judy Dench has it, and she is a woman to look up to. She is still working, though now she needs her scripts to be recorded for her. My father has it, and thereby hangs a lot of anger.
“They” tell you that the best thing you can do to help is to stop smoking. Except, I have never smoked in all of my life, not even once just to try it. But I grew up with a father who smoked heavily, since he was 14 years old. He only stopped when his own health was threatened. I grew up with lung problems from being a small baby. Oh yes, I was x-rayed at the age of 18 months because of it. I was already dealing with a lot of anger towards that feeble excuse for a human being (he was a violent, vicious and abusive bully all my life) and now I have just that bit more to handle.
The good side, if there is one, is that I have the “dry” kind. This means that the macular is thinning, unlike the “wet” kind, where abnormal blood vessels grow under the retina. So I will be able to have injections to pause the development. Oh lucky me. I am, as the optician recommended, eating more green vegetables; kale, broccoli, spinach etc. Again lucky me, I love my veg! I’ve also ordered a bottle of vitamins from Amazon which are supposed to help one’s sight. Apart from that, I just have to go on and hope that my vision will not deteriorate too quickly. In the meantime I’ve joined the macular degeneration society, along with the Meniere’s and diabetes ones. But I am facing a very uncertain future, given that my hearing is also deteriorating and I have arthritis. Helen Mirren was right when she said that growing old is not for wimps.
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