Seeing Clearer

 

Experience is the key to learning; without it, its impossible to gain perspective. 

Sadhguru

My eye is so much better...just in case you are wondering lol. It still hurts.  I feel that yucky but familiar pressure in it and above it but it looks better.  The swelling and most of the redness is gone. I can aslo see and look up into the light. Yeah! 

My family is urging me to get it looked at before it happens again and it will happen again, that I know...but I find myself resistant.  I hear myself saying: "It is just an eye...a body part in a body that has so many other things going on in other 'more important' parts...a body that is just one part of this human being...something temporal, ever changing, on its way to perishing like all physical things do. This body is a part of an identity I have of a "me" that is probably more in the way of who I truly am than anything else. Isn't my goal to dissolve this 'me' I am using now for more important things...to serve those in need, to grow and expand beyond it? Why would I put energy that I could best put into serving into seeking help for an eye?" I do think that way but there is more to my resistance.  Isn't there always more to resistance than meets the eye? lol

 I kind of diagnosed myself...I have a good idea what it is.  

What is it crazy lady? Do I even want to know?

I have had a life long history of cold sores (Herpes Simplex 1)...bad outbreaks... and a few years ago during an out break I got some vessicles on my eye lid.  At first I was like, "Oh no...that isn't good!"  but when it cleared up so quickly  I was like no big deal.  Then it happened a couple times after that...just the eye lid during a cold sore outbreak. I was convinced that it wasn't going to be a risk factor for me. Then it happened  without cold sores on the lip.  Still just the lid.  When I started getting the pressure in the left eye, the pain, and the swollen lids with no vessicles I never thought it was connected. I did go to my optometrist once during a painful red eye episode and together we kind of concluded  it was just dry eye and my eye lids were turning in a bit. There were no vessicles on the eye lid at that time so there was no way he would make that connection with Herpes. He gave me some tips on what to do  about it and off I went.  The pressure in the eye, however,  kept coming and going and then I started getting the flashes of light to the side. Again I made no connection between the cold sores and the eye.  I  thought I had  a possible retinal detachment and off I went again to my optometrist.  It was just a vitreous detachment. Which relieved me, though I did feel a bit ashamed for being such a drama queen. 

I went home and put it out of my mind again until the pressure got worse during the next episode. I had a few more bouts of eye redness and swelling with pain in the center of my eye so I told my GP about it. He referred me to ophpthamololgy.

 There was no inflammation what so ever when I had my appointment. The retinal detachment was ruled out right away (I felt like a fool for making a fuss). But being the thorough doctor she is, she noticed some cupping and wanted to keep testing me for Glaucoma ( my brother has normal tension glaucoma). I also have cataracts.  So for the last couple of years that is what I have been seeing her for.  I continued to have these flare ups in the eye every few months and each time they seem to get a little worse.  I almost feel physically sick with them.  But I have never mentioned them to a professional again. That's on me. 

So, it just dawned on me this weekend during this big flare up. "Oh...I know what this is!!!" I had  dental work done last week which is a big trigger for this.  All the pieces of the puzzle flooded into my awareness. Well, I also now know I need to do something about it.  I am likely doing some damage with each flare up.  Anti-virals might be in my future...but first ...I have to have a doctor tell me what I already know.  That's the part I find hard.  

I hate accessing health care, as you would know if you read any of my other blogs.  It is not that these wonderful people won't help me but I have an irrational  fear they won't believe me or they will diminish my symptoms.  Sigh!

Man...how did I get on that ramble when I just wanted to say I can see? How can I use this boring story to serve the purpose of this blog? 

This blog is all about being able to look inward and ask "why am I not okay inside", right? 

Through this experience, I do see something that is not okay in me.  I see what happens in this 'me' when I have to deal with anything health related.  When I thought I might have a retinal detachment and then Glaucoma I was obsessed about my eye.   I was obsessed not so much over the process of losing my eye sight but over  trying to prove that I wasn't making too much of things, that I was worthy of the specialist's time; that what I was experiencing was real probably more so to myself than any professional. There was so much shame when I was told there was no need to worry. As I did before, I began to doubt my own experience, question these signs and symptoms. I, later, after I was assured it was not a detached retina, thought the flare ups and pain  I was getting were psychosomatic and not real ( I wrote about it). I just felt so much shame for worrying about something that wasn't even real.  When it was real. 

I hesitate to seek help for this eye even though I know I need to look after my body...because I fear I will just activate the shame cycle again. That once again I will be told ...by myself...that I made too much of it and it is nothing. 

Anyway, I would like to say all those old samskaras are gone but obviously they are not.  I have some more work to do. I am, gratefully, gaining more perspective through each experience of health related concerns I encounter. I am truly beginning to see clearer in more ways than one. 

All is well.