As I reported here a couple of weeks ago, the retina of my left eye has recently been afflicted with a debilitating condition (possibly central serous choroidopathy), which has severely impacted my ability to maintain a normal work schedule in front of the computer monitor.
Pending my return visit to the specialist next week, I have developed a set of overlapping strategies to cope with the situation. The most important one is a cover for my left eye attached to my glasses, to be used while I am at the computer. This eliminates the incessant struggle waged by my eye muscles to reconcile the two discordant images with each other, but it does tend to place undue strain on my right eye. The results include eye exhaustion, general fatigue, headaches, and so on. To mitigate the worst of the effects, I take frequent breaks with both eyes covered, and also intersperse work with other activities that allow me to use both eyes without causing excessive strain.
This situation has necessarily forced me to triage what had previously been my routine activities. The primary tasks are:
| 1. | Maintaining this blog, retaining the most important content (and of course the news feed), and approving comments in a timely fashion. By careful use of my time I have thus far avoided omitting anything of significance. | |
| 2. | Completing all my editing assignments, including those for which I get paid, plus the most important ones I do pro bono. The latter group includes helping Vlad put together some of the SRT files needed for subtitles in translated videos. | |
| 3. | Programming jobs. These are hard on the eyes (or eye), but financially necessary. |
Tasks other than the three listed above have been cut back or eliminated. Casualties include extracurricular reading, watching most videos, and replying to emails.
Which brings me the reason for this post: if you have sent me an email and received no response, it is probably because of my new circumstances. I read almost all emails addressed to me, but responding to all of them has simply become impossible.
If you send tips that include only a link (no text), the chances that I will actually click the link and open it are not good. Most websites are visually busy, are confusing to my remaining eye, and can be painful to navigate, so I don’t follow most links unless absolutely necessary.
Plain text on a light background is not hard to deal with, so I can read a lot of the emails you send, even if I don’t respond to them all. And YouTube videos can be pleasant, to some extent. But I have to limit the amount of time I spend in front of this screen, so much of the web material has to be jettisoned.
This is why you don’t always receive replies from me. I appreciate all the supportive emails (and comments), but under the circumstances I will probably continue to be remiss in my responses, at least for the time being.
Fine ! Strong Fighter for increasing love …….
I will beg for your health ……
…. and you should find the reasons in your soul why this did happen with your eye.
Well, reading up on this nasty sounding condition, stress appears to be a risk factor & caffeine or other stimulants (e.g., energy drinks, dietary supplements) should be avoided .
On the other hand, there appears to be general consensus suggesting good news:
I’m sorry to learn of your eye problems. I can sympathize. For some reason, watching TV makes my left eye hurt, and changing the lens hasn’t helped. Maybe it’s just another step in the aging process: my left eye maybe aging faster than the right.
A couple of years back I had a little go-round with a cataract in my left eye.
It got so bad that I wore an eye patch for about six months, while waiting to get the surgery done that removed the cataract and replaced the lens with an implant.
The guys at work thoughtfully bought me a pirate hat and a clip-on parrot. I laughed so hard that tears came to me one remainin’ gud eye. Arrrr.
I wish you the best of luck with this. I know how frightening it is, just as I know you do as well.