Simon Floats Up Here

A year ago this past spring, I was driving on my street about to pull into my driveway after caring for my grands and I got something big and black landing in my left eye. Or so I thought it was a foreign object hitching a ride. Despite that being a nearly blind eye, the sudden obstruction was just that and I was a bit nonplussed as I pulled in and started trying to blink the thing out, wondering if some gnat or something got in there. After a while I realized it wasn't a gnat or an eyelash or anything else. It was on my eye. Like part of my eye. So what do I do in response? I Googled it of course. And this time, as opposed to the horrible bulging leg vein, the Internet scared the living crap out of me. I don't know precisely what key search words I used at the time because if I try and replicate it now, I get a different set of results that are much more benign, but that day I was nearly convinced my eye was about to fall out or it was symptomatic of some awful disease OR, the most likely culprit, I had been punctured in the eye somehow.  The reason I mentioned where I was coming from is key to that: I help take care of the grandkids overnight on Fridays. It's a big slumber party for my grandson in particular (I think my granddaughter would rather me not be there because, while it's not that she doesn't like me, it's a sign her parents, whom she likes more, are going to leave) and he builds an elaborate fort/bed for us on the floor in their room and of course we're surrounded by all kinds of things: Godzillas, T-Rex's, Legos, you get the picture.  No telling what I could have secretly impaled myself with during the night. Anyway, longish story short, after some consideration, given it was a weekend, I look up eye doctors who take emergency appointments. Mine did not.  I'll let my arm fall off rather than go see a doctor, but I only have one working eye, so I get more panicky about that area of my body.

I found a place in Greenfield (for those of you not familiar with Pittsburgh, it's not just around the corner from where I live but not so bad I couldn't get there - as a matter of fact I go there all the time because the surviving Imax theatre is very near there). So on a cold, rainy weekend day I drive down there and meet this very attractive young blonde doctor who was as sweet as she could possibly be when she checked me and pronounced it as simply "a floater" which is not atypical for people "my age".  She even asked me, "Don't any of your friends have floaters?" I sort of cocked my head quizzically and said, "I have no idea. It's not something we talk about." That struck her as odd. I guess she assumes everyone old enough for senior discounts talks about whatever ails them all the time (which, face it, we sort of do but I wasn't going to concede that). I shrugged and said, "Nope, it's never come up in conversation." Her answer to that was, "Well, you might as well name it because it'll be sticking around."

So I did. It's/His name is Simon after the Mike Myers SNL character. Because he's a cheeky little monkey.

She warned me to call back if I got any flashing lights in the same eye, which I did a couple of days later for about a day and it stopped, and since I'd overreacted enough for one event, I let it go and it's never happened again. And, like she also told me would happen, I grew used to Simon.  He's there and I see him floating around in there sometimes, most notably when I'm very tired, but for the most part, I forget about him. What he is in actuality, for any of you lucky enough not to know from first hand experience, is a shadow caused by clumps of collagen (there's that word again) floating in the vitreous (goo, in short) in our eyes which changes as we age.  I feel cursed by collagen actually: too much of it here, not enough there so I've got bulging veins. Collagen, you suck.

Anyway...fast forward to not long before Christmas when I decided that since she was so nice not to make me feel stupid for overreacting, I'd give them my business. I go down there and her partner, another young, highly attractive blonde (I have a hard time telling them apart actually), sees me, and I tell her about Simon and why he's named that.  That amused her, which I'm glad about but what was not amusing was the fact that by then she could tell I've started developing cataracts, which, again, is not uncommon for someone "my age". Nothing I need to be worried about just yet, but as we learn, not just yet turns into now all too soon. But it's not now, so I'll worry about it when I need to. I'm grateful that Simon didn't turn out to be Pennywise...

...but what is scary is how fast he came on. I woke up one morning and he wasn't in my life. And literally with a blink of an eye he was and presumably always will be (at least I'll never be alone).  The realization that I'm not in control of the things beginning to pop up with my body was the real horror show. I suppose I never was and that none of us are, but still I feel like my body has a different agenda than I do suddenly, and I'm not quite sure how I get it back in line.