Memoirs of a retinal detachment survivor: 4 months later

When I think of the multiple roles I play in my daily life (doting phonics expert mum, competitive sports mum, Shakespeare chatting/chiding mum to a pre-teen while keeping my temper in check, supportive spouse, CEO to my COO-darling husband, teacher, mentor, colleague, daughter, sister, friend, meal planner, house organizer, party planner, holiday organizer, soiree hostess,# yougetthepicture), I have had to, in the last 4 months add this new role to my resume- retinal detachment survivor.

It’s not an easy one. It’s seems rare but it happens. It’s not chronic and life-threatening; it’s not like a cancerous tumour. Yes, it’s your eye ; a very important organ, but you are expected to get on with your life and be thankful, grateful. I am. So full of gratitude. I am Bartimeas. I have been saved.

But I have had to concentrate on my new role because if I just ignore it, and say it has become me, then I might forget that I have been briefly in the darkness , reduced to counting fingers and seeing shadowy figures and back to light.

Since July 8 2012, I have had 5 operations on my eye( 4 on my right, 1 on my left) Three of them were laser ones(not LASIK, where one does it for vanity, or for practicality) but where the ophthalmologist shoots red light like “laser tags” your eye to seal your retina, to try to hold the delicate membrane together; it just beguiles and confounds me how this business of the retina works. Two of the operations were more delicate and invasive in nature. I really should have paid more attention in Biology lessons instead of writing haikus about bones! Also, I have had my eyes dilated so much that it really messes up your head!

But right now, in my new role as eye surgery survivor, I can tell you that the blooming retina is one heck of an important fabric of the human body! It decides on the amount of light that enters into your eye to determine your visual acuity. In fact, retinal specialists are really important medical experts- for they help you restore your vision using delicate microscopes and mini tools that you won’t probably touch in your lifetime. If they do a good job, you have a lot to be grateful for- whether it’s a retinopexy, a vitrectomy or a scleral buckle procedure.( I have had both the former.)

I am lucky( and I will say it again and again) that modern medical science has made me see again. 30 years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been this lucky.

One comic observation that has come out of this is that I have realised that it is a pre-requisite for ophthalmologists to really have nice ears, the amount of patients who have to stare at their ears all day!

There is a tiny halo left over from my post-silicone oil removal surgery that comes and sometimes goes. I have learned to live with it. It’s slightly smaller than a five cent coin and hopefully, my brain will train to see it like a parasite and will expel it. I will try to be positive and see it as a halo of God, rather than an irritant. Or an annoying oily glob leftover from the silicone oil tamponade used to buffer my retina back in place. I am technically middle aged-40- though of course my mind tells me I am really still 21. So presbyopia has started to set in. But imagine having to equilibrate your distinctly different eyes- one with a near 6/6 vision with an intra- ocular lens for long distance and the other, with a myopia of -700 which requires me wearing a contact lens on one eye. For reading, I now wear a pair of RM10 reading classes to help equilibrate both eyes, as fine eye work of telling the difference between a comma and a full-stop is really a daily occupational hazard.

Having been on eyes drops for about 3.5 months, from eye pressure drops to steroid ones to the much-despised dilation ones, I can tell you that it made me feel almost like a pill-popper. I was almost having withdrawal symptoms when I went off them! But gleefully so.

Sometimes, though rarely now, I wake up in nightmarish jolts just to check if I can see properly. I view people now as perfectly sighted or partially sighted or legally blind. I realize now that even if your sight is not 100%, life does go on. And you adjust. My partially blind foot masseuse( I have many conversations with my multiple masseuse- they are great conversationalists) taught me some humbling life lessons.

From him, I learned to slow down, close my eyes and be grateful. And just be.

That is all.

-R Nov 2012

Pre-surgery blues of a wonky-eyed girl

Pre-surgery blues of a wonky eyed girl

Image of a detached retina in the eye.

I don’t know which is worse, having an emergency surgery while on holiday in Europe, or planning for a scheduled one while working and in the throes of a tumultuous term filled with deadlines. I have had to tell all my classes that I will be away for about 2 weeks but they won’t be missing too many classes as they will be away at camp next week. Most of them are very genuinely concerned and very sweet. They have been accustomed to see me teach in my sunglasses for about 5 weeks now. But I had a 12 year old ask me with the brightest eyes, the most earnest of expressions and with the most pronounced Scottish accent- “Miss, what if the surgeon does something wrong, and makes you blind?” I had to laugh at that innocence, that honesty and that “Christ- kids do say the darnest things” statement! I told little A that I have every faith that I will be alright and I will be right back with my good eyes all, doing poetry in Jamaican accents and analyzing Blake’s Chimney Sweeper in no time. And if they were naughty, they’ll have lunch break detentions with me soon! My Year 12s were definitely more mature about my impending absence and they have assured me that the poetry assemblies we have planned will go ahead and they can be counted on to deliver them and they will be fine without me with them in Singapore on Camp Week! With my creative writing club, we have made a pact to write the scariest ghost stories and will meet again on Oct 31st to celebrate Halloween together! I told them I’ll have my ‘spying eyes’ watching their every move and making sure that all will be good. Of the 100 or so students whose lives I touch and whose lives touch mine weekly, many came by to wish me good luck, and told me they will be thinking of me with love & light. That’s really sweet. I have had loads of phonecalls from lovely aunts and concerned friends offering help and such. It’s such a different experience to my sudden emergency in Paris!

My own children told me that they have been praying for me every night. But they also told me that they are not worried as their mummy is very brave. My eldest girl is going to make me a David Guetta and U2 playlist with a little Baroque and Opera added in. My ever faithful rock of Gibraltar has cancelled all his appointments for tomorrow and will wait for me until my discharge from the specialist eye centre. He has not once failed to go with me to my countless eye appointments even though I said I can have the driver drive me. That’s pure devotion for which I am so grateful for. In sickness and in health.

As for the surgery itself although it’s a double procedure of removing the silicone oil and adding an intra ocular lense(IOL) onto my recently operated eye due to a cataract, it will apparently be routine, like going for a long eye examination. The nurse at the eye hospital told me that I won’t even get a bed to lie down after the surgery. I’ll get a sofa as I won’t be under GA or sedation. I’ll have local anaesthesia and was told to just bring a change of clothes. That’s good to know. As my eye centre is right next to my favourite mall in the whole wide world, perhaps I can pop over to the shops for a look after! ( kidding) I did tell the lady at Laura Mercier that I’ll be back soon!

Preparation for cover work for all my classes has been stressful. That means Julius Caesar lesson planning, IGCSE coursework and Susan Hill’s gothic novel analysis and reading assessments for the younger classes and activities that won’t mollify and muddle the cover/supply staff. I was even contemplating doing my surgery after a hard day’s work, i.e. after my favourite creative writing CCA on Wed. But I think that’s stretching it a bit too much. I should stop priotising work especially given the fragile state of my eyes. So, Thursday morning it will be.

Got to stay away from such fine eye work for a while after my double whammy procedure of silicone oil removal cum cataract surgery.

Last weekend, I treated myself to a foot massage and a facial, especially, since I won’t be able to have facial manipulations for a while. I didn’t bother with a pedicure for obvious reasons. You can never have nail varnish in an operating theatre.

I am a tad nervous but I have sought the opinion of my kind French ophthalmologist as well about this coming double surgery and I think I will be okay. This was after my frank discussion with my very experienced Malaysian ophthalmologist who was also quite blunt in his analogy of describing what my impending surgery will entail. When I asked, “Will you be making a big incision to drain out the oil in my eye or will you use the cannula irrigation method"? Answer: I’ll use a better finer method and try to drain it all out as much as possible and I will use the same incision to insert the news lense. My next question, What happens to the oil residue if any? Answer: They might form into clots or bubbles and become floaters. What? Why can’t ALL the oil be removed? It’s almost a catch 22- between silicone oil and gas. Both have their pros and cons, It’s like washing a greasy plate without detergent. Ok… (my brow furrowed?) You try to rinse out as much as the oil but you can’t guarantee it will all be removed if you don’t use detergent right? ( I started having an image of my eye going round and round a dish-washer minus the soapy suds and the oily residue doesn’t all come off. Not the best image to have before getting into surgery mode.

After having had ze best dream French medical treatment, it’s frankly quite a comedown, god-awful bedside manners-wise. No wonder, you pay for what you get. Private medical care in Malaysia is one of the cheapest in the world, and coupled with the MCP mentality of surgical demigods, I guess I’ll just have to manage my expectations. But I am sure my very experienced surgeon knows what he is doing and I really shouldn’t be doubting him. But goodness me, a little TACT would have been nice! For the surgeon, it may just be 'another day at the office" but for us patients, I think they forget that it's quite a stressful part of their lives!!!(Here I go in my “formidable femme fatale” mode again, as my better half would quip!)

This double surgery is not going to cost me the price of a Birkin bag but at least I’ll be 10 minutes from home. I may even take photos of the OT with my iphone since I am only going to be locally anaesthesised- again- kidding! I will have to learn to equilibrate both my eyes after the surgery as my untreated eye is still highly myopic. And the operated eye will hopefully attain the best visual acuity that it can be. And let’s hope that my retina will stay INTACT!

We shall see. But oh yes, I definitely have seriously mucked–up, bad luck eyes but I am still filled with gratitude. I am blessed. Right now, my adorable little boy is waiting for me to dance with him. So, wish me luck...

Wonky eyed girl

3 Oct 2012

Confessions of a "granny" blogger!

OR WHY I WILL NOT END MY SENTENCES WITH WTF!

My (ten years junior to me) baby sister, whose opinions I regard highly, has said that my blogs are too long. She was trying to get me to add ads into my blog and use more photos. Apparently, people who have nuffnang-endorsed blogs are the successful bloggers. I clearly am not. I have a grand total of 14 followers, many of whom are close friends and some sweet students whom I have bribed. I am hardly a serial blogger. Though I love writing, I hardly have time to update my blog posts especially during term time when I am juggling with planning, teaching and marking on top of the kids and our hectic social life and other side secret projects that I seem to get myself embroiled in. And I write in long form.

So I went into these so called popular blogs that she told me about. The ones that NETizens on Blogosphere are raving about. And it’s confirmed, I am definitely OLD(er). And I can’t bear the acronyms that they use, or the poor grammar that sometimes comes along with it. And the incessant camwhoring! ( but that’s another blogpost altogether!) I blame it on politics which has destroyed our education system and has annihilated a whole generation of potentially strong writers in Malaysia. C’mon, we have been a British colony until 1957. In 55 years, we have managed to lose potentially the most important legacy that colonialisation (sometimes) bring- a strong education system- and with it, a nation of competent, if not fluent speakers and writers of the world’s most important language (no, it’s still English, not quite Chinese , yet). And I don’t think adding wtf at the end of a sentence is cool, or right, at all. Perhaps it’s because I am a product of an all-girls school that was started by very proper Catholic French and Irish nuns. Perhaps, I am an ole grandma when it comes to writing conventions. Or as my hubby often says about me, you are an old soul.

I am human. Of course, I cuss, but if I am going to add wtf at the end of every sentence, I might as well slash my wrists. That’s not blogging. That’s writing poorly, in bad English. (That’s a redundancy). I may THINK WTF in my head, sometimes,( or all the time if my thyroid is on overdrive), but I don’t need to put it at the end of a sentence.

Which comes back to my main point, I am NEVER going to get thousands of followers for my blog, because I sound, old, archaic and wordy. And I use real humour, irony, sarcasm, hyberbole, persuasion and rhetoric, which I guess can be summed up with one acronym- WTF- by the generation Y bloggers. It’s almost a professional hazard: being a teacher.linguist.grammarian.writer.editor.critic type person that I am, which finds me English knickers knotted in this manner. I admit, I even cringe when the Jesuit padre in church makes subject-verb agreement errors in his sermon, and I am in church, for God’s sake.(no pun intended). But I do calm down after a vigorous prayer session, and ACCEPT and understand that many EAL English learners of the world do struggle with English, particularly of the written form; if it is their second or additional language, hence they will not write or speak in that fluency that is required of a first language speaker. I still blame it on the education system.

Often, I get asked, how are you an English teacher, Miss. You don’t have an accent. Aren’t you Chinese? Aren’t you Malaysian? Being stereotyped and sussed out at the same time. I tell them, my dear students that I am a citizen of the world, and as long as I dream, and cuss in English, it’s my first language. Never mind that it’s the only language that I really feel comfortable ranting in or grew up writing the most in.

So, back to my long-winded blog- I think it’s the age thing, but I am also a very detailed person. I process things chronologically, and I pay attention to detail in everything. Hence I can arrive at a 5000 word blog entry (worthy of one chapter in a Master’s dissertation without the citations) in an hour if I set my mind to it, and this is excluding all the wtfs that I have omitted! Perhaps I should go for a course in concision, precis and "less is more".

So, dearest sister, I am definitely a confirmed Generation X. I think , if I I may say so myself, a pretty cool one too, considering that I own a blog, know how to run it, have facebook, ( but stops at twitting), is on instagram and now use google+ and googledocs and use email daily. I also teach a large number of very young people on a yearly basis, and from them, I have struggled to get the point across that if you do not know your parts of speech, your articles and prepositions and your clauses and what not, FIRST, before anything else, there is little point in going WTF, BRB, LOL or NP with me. As for people of the younger generations whose blogs get all the followers and hits like crazy because they use wtf at the end of every sentence, I am sorry, I shall be happy with my 14 followers and odd and rare comments or limited likes.

I am NOT from generation Y or Z and proud of it! Now excuse me, as I GTG and LMFAO cause YOLO!

R- Sept 2012

Travelogue Brugge: Beer Country

Travelogue Brugge: Beer Country

Map-reading, a week after my eye surgery. Ensuring that we do not get lost:)

I never ever thought I would enjoy a glass of beer, that is, until I got to Brugge. After my retinal eye scare in Paris the week before, the last thing I wanted to think of was stress. So Brugge was a complete opposite of that. I could relax. It was fuss-free, small, compact and medieval and magical all at the same time. And the beers were dirt cheap and in the pleasant & cool summer heat, so refreshing and downright delicious. It started with a sip off my husband’s glass. After my costly medical emergency(read previous post on Travelogue Paris), he was ready to have more than a few glasses of beer to zone out, chill out and vege out as we continued our Euro Tour de force with kids, luggage and an invalid wife of sorts, et al. After that thirst-quenching sip, I was ordering beer, in restaurants, and buying them off Carrefour’s shelves. So unbecoming and unfeminine of me. But wheat beer is yummy, and so dirt cheap( I think I already said that) that it made sense to drink it instead of water! And I think good for healing!

Bruges, as one may spell it too, is beguiling, enchanting and pretty. It’s so small that our three kids could waltz through her entire streets and see all the main sights in a day. The homes are very modern inside though they look like they were build for bucolic Flemish people thousands of years ago. It was so so pleasant, and quiet after Paris, with their crazy taxi Merde-chanting drivers, surly waiters, crowded Tour de France tourists, Mona Lisa paparazzi, and determined Eiffel tower climbers. Yes, it was crowded too and extremely touristy, but it was postcard pretty and very quaint, and you could find yourself on an empty bench by the canal looking at whimsical ducks and think, yes, you could spout poetry or paint a picture here. So Brugge really is when our Euro vacation began. As much as we didn’t let my surgery in Paris affect us too much, everyone had been walking on eggshells on whether mummy’s eyes would get elbowed by a rushing tourist rushing into a slamming Metro door or if walking up & down staircases might not be good for her recently reattached retina!

In Brugge, you walked slowly or rather, ambled- everywhere. On cobbled-stone streets, where you can hear the merry clip clop of horse drawn carriages( filled with gullible tourists), you also hear the belfries all over the small city go ‘ding dong ding dong’ all day. Like a mini-Venice, Brugge has its fair share of pretty canals, historic alm houses, ancient churches and atmospheric breweries. Spires and just bucolic people ambling about gently, probably high on the delicious wheat beer they have drunk copious amounts of.

The many pretty sights of this UNESCO Heritage City

It’s a great place for children, as they do star jumps in the squares such as Mkrt and City Hall . Kids too enjoy the canal boat ride that meanders through the city, that lulled my son little T into peaceful slumber. The chocolate museum is fun and informative, as are the cheese shops for our cheese-loving children, and chocolate shops abound, and cute, pretty Tin Tin merchandise along with amazing and delectable biscuits of all kinds. And in Brugge, you'll find shops selling the prettiest Christmas ornaments, not made in China. My favourite spot, has got to be the Beguinage(could I have been a nun in my previous life?) I don’t know, but it was such a peaceful little slice of heaven, I genuflected in the church within the compound and gave thanks for having my eye sight restored just the week before. We stayed at a lovely family-run B & B and the owners had reconstructed a former butchery and a fish shop into a modern, contemporary home inspired by Philippe Starck, one of my favourite designers. Their garden used to be part of the countryside of the ancient city of Brugge. It was also here that M and I, after the kids went to bed with the eldest in charge, managed to sneak out for a “just the two of us” dinner, at dusk on a lovely summery day. It was very romantic, the clip clop of horses gadding about, smiley waiters who all spoke perfect English with no trace of an accent and bells ringing all around us at just the right intervals and a gentle dusky breeze blowing. Apparently, lucky us, we had missed miserable rain by just a day and we had lovely sunshine with lots of ice-cream and waffle stops in the two days we were there.

On our last evening, we stumbled upon a lovely restaurant close to the Beguinage with a courtyard garden, so private but chock-ful of blooming hydrangeas and had the most enjoyable family meal there. These hidden surprises, all unplanned and stumbled upon, is always what makes family holidays so special. Till today, I can remember every single word that each of the children said & the expressions they had on their faces at that meal and how S enjoyed her rabbit stew( she's always determined & adventurous to try something local everywhere she goes), little T enjoying his baby lobster pasta shared with Mummy, Belly Boo had a whole roast chicken by herself, and my better half, a happy man with his frosted beer glass of Belgian beer and a beef stew & all of us feeling completely relaxed.

Dinner on our last evening in Brugge

So Brugge, will always be special, for its quaintness, its lovely quite streets and pretty buildings, but most of all for it cooling wonderful Belgian beer that makes it oh so drinkable. Another ice-cold glass, please? We’ll definitely be back. Our son picked up Shakespeare there, from a T-shirt! “Shakesbeer, To beer or not to beer!” After all, he’s got to continue with his education!

Family with a beer vespa!

Postcards from Paris: The City of Light through my children's eyes!

Paris through my children’s eyes

We got our girls a camera each just before we left for Europe, as a reward for an amazing school year and wonderful results and achievements that they had had all year. But mostly, we wanted them to take ownership of their travel snapshots. We wanted them to see new places with their own lenses so to speak, so here are my favourite photos of Paris which they captured with their own cameras. They are especially precious to me as I was able to see what they had observed while I was in hospital for my emergency eye surgery and couldn’t be with them!

At the Lourve museum, we did a very unbecoming thing, as parents. To get them laughing and giggling, I suggested a Lourve expedition with a twist: we would look for as many statues, sculptures, statues and paintings with boobs and bums. After seeing the Mona Lisa and the standard ones, what else was there to enjoy at the Lourve, its vastness gets tiresome after all and one gets easily museumed out,( plus it wasn’t the first time for M and I) so we were being naughty parents indeed. Rather than memorising dates and artists' names, their 'slightly twisted' and naughty experience at the Lourve was more fun, more real and definitely less boring!

I noticed that when children have their own cameras, they then have the desire to create their own narratives. We learned that as they photographed what they saw, felt, touched and sensed around them, their self-actualisation and awareness became stronger and more vivid. Belly Boo has now been able to re-produce Degas' ballet dancers and all three can easily sketch out Paris's key landmarks from memory. They also use their own photographs as fodder for sketches or paintings which they did later on.

At the Notre Dame, I noticed S taking a keen interest in the stained glass patterns and the history and description of each painting or dyptiches on the walls. Belly Boo was keener to take action shots so there were lots of star-jumping mostly throughout Europe. Little T had our SLR camera most of the time, and from his wee height, he managed some cool photos too, especially later in Brugge.

Plus they notice wall murals better too!

Enjoy their photo-journey encapsulating the joie de vivre that is Paris!...

Wall art in the Quartier du Marais

Well-decorated vespa

Ladybird at the Place des Vosges

All is lost for France with Hollande the clown?

A pic of Daddy on the Eiffel Tower with a bird's eye view of Paris

Oh no! It's Spidey on Champs Elysees!

The view from our window at our Marais apartment. Perfect for recuperation.

Our favourite Paris roundabout taken from the Lourve!

Stalking Mummy through the Marais!

I got you, under my skin.