Vision Loss Redux Part XVI - Encouraging (non) Developments

To my many legions of fans...I apologize that I have been remiss in keeping you up to speed on my very queer (I've been reading Chronicles of Narnia to my daughter, so I'm starting to say and think words and phrases such as "queer" and "I say!" and "You're being a perfect ass!") situation.

Think the narrator from "LOST"...Last time, on Vision Loss...

Kate: Will our insurance cover the IV/ig treatments you're getting...TOMORROW MORNING?
Dan (With the "I'm going to cry" look that Jack gets in every other scene): You know, you're right, the doc mentioned "pharmacy" when she said about the treatments...well, I'll just have to find out before we start tomorrow.
Kate: Did you know that I read on the internet that these treatments cost between $10 - 15 THOUSAND?
Dan (with a tear welling up in his eye and a hollow feeling in his stomach): I was not aware of that...

In the hospital the next morning, after making several phone calls, the case worker for the hospital came in and assured me that everything would be taken care of...phew! I would have had to break open the blue piggy bank I've owned since I was about 8 years old to pay for that one!

Here come the mother hens...I mean nurses! Talk about intense...this is a new procedure for all of them, so they're reading the manual (which always engenders confidence) and checking my blood pressure every 10 minutes, jamming a thermometer in my (praise God for advanced technology...if you know what I mean...) ear every 15 minutes and asking me constantly if I was alright...apparently people can stop breathing due to the certain side effects of this treatment...

No side effects...I didn't even get the predicted drowsiness...just read my books, happy as a clam, except for a needle in my hand and having to take Edgar the IV with me every time I need to visit the gentleman's room.

The next day was a bit different...see, I was still taking narcotics at this point to sleep...interestingly, the same ones Jack got a doctor friend of his to prescribe for him near the end of season 3 (in case you're wondering, when I took the "What LOST character are you?" quiz, I was...never mind...it's not Jack).

So, for some reason, I told the nurse that I didn't need my narcotics, at least when she was making her rounds. Closer to sleepy-time, I asked the nurse on duty to retrieve my sleeping pills so that I could get a good night's rest, to which she promptly replied that she would and promptly never returned.

Thankfully, I had pills with me in my bag...but I had waited too long. See, these pills don't do a good job of putting you to sleep, they just keep you asleep once you're there. Well, waiting too long to go to sleep in the hospital is bad because you get hungry, and once you get hungry, sleep is but a distant pipe dream...

After much consternation and pounding my peanut jar and another dose of narcotics...I fell into a fitful sleep...for about a half-hour...then...the most reviled of all humans enters my room...the most despised and loathed of all creatures that walk this ball of dust...the happy, chatty nighttime nurse.

In my half-drugged state, she was asking me about my family, about the picture my daughter drew for me, about who knows what...and she wouldn't let me ignore her...I couldn't have been more dismayed if she had flipped on an Olbermann rant (I exaggerate)...I was hungry again...but I was drugged up enough that I slept in a semi-comatose state for a couple more hours after the Spanish Inquisition left (if only she had used the "comfy chair") until the second round of treatments.

This day was not as merry as the first due to my lack of respite the night before.

More later...must get my respite for the new week ahead...