Doctor My Eyes

We were having flashbacks this week to the old Twilight Zone episode called, Time Enough at Last.

Henry Bemis (played by Burgess Meredith) is the only survivor of a nuclear apocalypse. He's giddy to find the remains of the local public library. Reading is his passion, and he's never gotten along well with people. He begins to stack books in piles, planning years ahead. Finally, he sits down and sighs, "Now I have all the time in the world to read." He leans over to pick up one of the tomes, and his glasses fall off his head and break.

He's blind without his glasses.

"That's not fair," he moans. "I had all the time I needed."

Avid readers everywhere felt his pain. Mr. Ginley felt it in a more personal way this week, when his eye doctor diagnosed him with a "palsy of the left third nerve." Meaning his left eye works and his right eye works, they just don't play well together.

Meaning he finds it nearly impossible to read. Or watch TV. Or work on the computer. Or walk in a straight line.

The prescription, the doctor said, is time. Give it time. How much? No one can say.

In the meantime, my husband is trying to adjust to his new limitations. That's tough for someone who is surrounded by books in every room of the house.

He's listening to an audio book, but it often makes him sleepy.

Of course, crossword puzzles, which have also been his passion, are out. We've changed our routine in the evenings, so I am reading clues to him, telling him where the answers are positioned, so he can get an idea in his mind of the layout. I really suck at this, by the way, because I'm subconsciously trying to solve the puzzle in my head, so I have a tendency to jump ahead. It's been a learning experience for me, and a lesson in patience.

I'm proud of the fact that he's dealing with all of this so well. My husband is not patient, but he's been extraordinarily so the past week and a half. Hopefully, he will wake up one day soon, and his eyes will be back to normal.

In the meantime, he is keeping his sense of humor. He often quotes me as quoting a line from True Grit, "I call that mighty bold talk for a one-eyed fat man."

We return to the eye doctor on Wednesday. Hopefully, he will have encouraging news.

Cue Joni Mitchell...Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone...