Doesn't get any better than playing in an East Coast snowstorm

Grandbabies, Ellie, Wyatt, and Cody

February 2, 2021 - Tuesday morning

23 degrees/cloudy/breezy

Pentoga Road

Ah, to be young again and enjoy a good old fashioned snowstorm. Honestly? I still enjoy a rock 'em, sock 'em few feet of fresh snow every now and then.

I didn't sleep well Sunday night. In fact, my slumber might better be described as dozing off and on. My appointment with the UW School of Medicine was scheduled for 9 AM and really, I didn't want to go at all. In fact, at one point, I'd made a light hearted, kidding, suggestion to Sargie that maybe we could just go back home and skip the tests.

I tried to make it sound as though I was joking, but inwardly, I was serious. I didn't want to go through what I knew was coming.

My first observation while sitting in the waiting room of the clinic was that everyone was old. Walkers, motorized carts, and even the occupant of a wheel chair populated the area. White haired ladies predominated and bald, crusty looking men were the norm. I felt young, really young, that is until I glanced up in a restroom mirror and noticed the person watching me resembled those in the waiting room. 

My name was called. Suzy, garbed in a quasi hazmat suit, greeted me at the door and led me deep into the sanctum sanctorum. I remember thinking, "So this is where they shove the bamboo shoots under a person's fingernails, eh?"

Tests were run, pictures taken. Eye drops were used often and as my pupils dilated, what vision I had slowly blurred. Suzy became a happy, helpful, talking shape. Dr. Jen, a high octane teaching ophthalmologist who later entered the room was the same.

Dr. Jenn and Suzy were angels. Quick to put me at ease, they led me and more importantly, my eyes, through more tests than your average lab rat has in his short lifetime.

Suddenly I was alone. The minutes ticked by. I sat in the darkened room as pictures were viewed, numbers crunched, and a diagnosis made. 

It was just me and my thoughts. 

A knock on the door. "Come on in," I yelled. "Coffee's done."

Dr. Jenn laughed, sat alongside of me and said, "Let's see what we have here."

What we had were pictures of the insides of my eyes.

Both looked good to me, but to a research scientist, a renowned specialist in her field, one who often has interns tailing after her like so many ducklings following their mama across a busy road, the photos told a completely different story.

"See the picture on the right," she began. "See those little bumps along the base line? Well, that's dry macular degeneration in your left eye. It's definitely there, but so far, isn't causing any problems."

"Let's look at the right eye."

A silence ensued that a Sherman tank could have driven through. Though I pretended to see, my eyes were so dilated and sore that the images were gray blobs.

"We're not so lucky with the right eye," Dr. Jenn finally said. "See that mound on the baseline? That's fluid that's leaking and causing your vision loss."

My worse fears had come to fruition. I knew what that meant.

"We're fortunate," she continued, "in that there doesn't appear to be any blood with the fluid. You need medication applied to the area and the sooner the better."

Dr. Jenn picked up the phone, pulled eighty or a hundred strings, talked to another research scientist/doctor somewhere on campus, and made arrangements for me to have the first of a lifetime series of monthly injections within the hour.

I asked the good doctor what would happen if I simply refused to begin the series of shots.

"Why," she said in a very motherly tone, "You'll lose all sight in that eye... and... there's a good chance your other eye will develop fluid at some point and you could very well lose sight in that eye as well."

Dr. Jenn did say that there's a possibility that the medication can absorb the fluid and actually improve my vision to near normal, but she also emphasized that for now, retaining status quo is the goal.

Did she say near normal?  NEAR NORMAL! 20/20? That was a something I immediately grabbed hold of and held tightly. She threw me a life line, a ray of hope.

I sat, somewhat shaken, and finally said, "Show me the way to the needle."

We had less than half an hour to make our next appointment. Sargie had packed, so I blindly (literally) stumbled across the street and loaded the car while she checked out of the hotel. Dr. Jenn had punched in our destination on my iPhone, so we took off from the hotel parking lot and headed to the University.

Thanks to Sargie's inner city driving experience (Foster City, population - very few) we made it to the next appointment with five minutes to spare.

I was shown to an examination room where first, a spunky intern, a little girl who looked about twelve years old, performed yet another exam. Though she was a licensed MD and a third year resident, I jokingly asked if her mother knew that she was playing with all this expensive medical equipment. 

She laughed and giggled and patted me on the shoulder, making me feel downright grandfatherly.

Next came Dr. Kimberly, probably the nicest medical professional I've ever met. "Working me in" at the last moment to her busy research/teaching/clinical schedule, she took half an hour explaining what a lifetime of injections in the eye would entail, how my life would change having to adhere to a strict cocktail of injected medications, what the procedure would be and how it all would feel. She apologized umpteen times and after each apology, I told her it was okay, that I understood.

But down deep, it wasn't okay and I didn't want to understand. I felt scared, frightened, and afraid.

I have an image to maintain. I was once referred to in a publication as THE Alaska mountain man. I'd looked danger in the eye and laughed. 

Alaska mountain men, even those who are retired, don't get scared. They figure out a solution, hop on their musk ox, and gallop into the fray to save the day. 

For the first time in many years, my John Wayne, two-fisted, beer drinking, "man the torpedos, full speed ahead," attitude began to fizzle. My eyes grew watery and at one point, my stomach felt as though it might rebel in protest.

I kept reminding myself that I'd been through worse. I once awakened to a grizzly bear running his nose along the topside of my tent. I was trapped in an ice cave and thought I'd die. I spent days in a snow cave in the Brooks Range while a blizzard raged, burying both the cave and me under feet of wind driven snow. I'd broken my back in the arctic, suffered severe frost bite. 

But those were nothing compared to the fear that was welling inside my chest. 

Where was Sargie when I needed her? Damned Covid protocols. At that moment, I'd have gladly gotten the disease just to have Sargie hold my hand and tell me everything was going to be okay.

I thought of Mom who spent the last several years of her life receiving monthly injections in both her eyes. She never really complained, just always remarked they made her uncomfortable and tired.

If Mom could do it, so could I. 

I was brought out of my daze by Dr. Kim.

"Ready?" she inquired.

Summoning all of my big boy courage and saying a last minute prayer to Baby Jesus for strength, I said, "Amen" out loud and answered, "Let's get this damn thing over with."

The doctor echoed my Amen and began.

She put numbing drops in the eye, then sterilized it, then more drops, then soap, then drops, then Qtips with drops, and finally, attached some device that kept my eye wide open.

It reminded me of the alien probe used on Cartman in a South Park cartoon, only this one was for my eye, not the other end.

Ouch ouch ouch ouch...

"All done," she said.

We spent another fifteen minutes talking about the future, my future. Dr. Kim said she knew it was a long drive from the UP to Madison, five and a half hours, but said she'd like to keep me under her care for the time being. Eventually, I can receive my injections from a specialist who practices in Wausau,  Wisconsin, two and a half hours closer to home. I told Dr. Kim that Sargie and I were retired and time was of no concern to us. We're always up for a good shopping/sight seeing trip.

My major worry didn't concern my sight, but about hiking the AT next year. How would I receive monthly injections over six months with a pack strapped to my back. 

The good doctor held up her hands, laughed a bit, then said, "Don't worry. As the time grows nearer, you and I will sit down together and come up with a solution. We'll find doctors in the fourteen states near the trail who can help us out. I'll be happy to help."

I liked that. She said US. 

I mean, really, do they come any sweeter than that?

US.

At that moment, I felt as though I had a true partner in this business of retaining my sight.

Yesterday's trip home was a long one. The eye felt... funny. It ran, it felt scratchy, it felt full, and it ached, but didn't hurt.

Everything's back to normal this morning. The eye is somewhat red and as Dr. Kim said, the bruising and resulting redness will last about a week after each injection. She also said that on the plus side, I'll get double sympathy points and to enjoy them all, that I've earned them.

So far, it hasn't worked on Sargie.

Thinking back on yesterday's testing and procedure... well, I'd rather not think back on it. Give me a grizzly bear poking his nose around my tent or a good old fashioned arctic blizzard any day. 

On the other hand, my vision is good enough to say that I'm going for my morning walk before returning home to make sawdust in the shop.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...