My sister, Grechen, left town Thursday after being in Atlanta for a week so I was sad and going through withdrawls Friday, Saturday and Sunday.    I miss her living in Atlanta.  She lives in Dallas – so far away.  While she was in town we didn’t do anything major, like outdoor stuff, because it’s been so darn cold in Atlanta but we got to spend some time alone, sans kids, which was really nice.   Our time alone was mostly spent in the car travel to and from my doctor’s appointments and stores.   I shop more when she’s in town than I do in an entire year I think!  The Friday after she arrived I had an appointment with the Opthamologist during which he informed me that I have Angle-Closure Glaucoma and needed to have Laser Iridotomy on both eyes ASAP.  WHAT?   No one was with me to hear what the doctor was saying and anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t process surprise/unexpected information well.   I was in a bit of a haze.   I spent the rest of Friday and most of the weekend sort of in shock that I have Glaucoma.

Saturday evening, a couple whose kids Grechen and I grew up with in Florida and some here in Georgia, came to my mom’s house to have dinner and see Grechen whom they hadn’t seen in perhaps 20 years.  We had a good time catching up with them.  Sebastian spent the day at Supercross with a friend so I was kind of bummed he wasn’t there to see everyone but Madelyn was there and was on her best behavior, thank goodness.  My first eye laser procedure was Tuesday at 2:00 so I was pretty anxious all morning.

At some point, twice while she was here actually, Grechen and I went to Whole Foods, a special treat for me because I don’t go out of my 8 mile radius due to time constraints, very often.  I bought the most delicious raspberry thumbprint cookies (here’s a recipe) and tried a new flavor of KeVita Sparkling Probiotic drink, Pomegranate.   Exciting, right?

Despite my concern, I made it through the first Laser Iridotomy just fine last Tuesday.   I get the other eye done tomorrow.  Yay lasers!  😉  I keep thinking I shouldn’t say here how the Laser Iridotomy felt so I don’t scare anyone away from having the procedure done if they need to, but gosh.. I could actually feel the lasers.  My eye was numbed but I had to wait about 30 minutes before the procedure so maybe the numbing medicine wore off?  The feeling of the lasers was just strange at first.. for the first 93 lasers.   I thought we were finished when the doctor and nurse lifted me out of the chair but they were just leading me to the next, more intense, laser.  The doctor said he only had to do 8-10 lasers on the second machine so that was a relief but it was more uncomfortable than the first for sure.

From WebMD: Some people feel a mild but sharp sensation in the eye during this procedure. But there usually is no pain after laser iridotomy.

I will get my eyeglass prescription filled about a week after the second Laser Iridotomy, which is exciting.  I got the prescription in November but thought I could get by with reading glasses.  Clearly that’s not working for me as anything about 15 inches or closer is a bit blurry.   My sister recommended I get glasses from Warby Parker, an online eyeglasses store that also has a brick and mortar store in Atlanta.   Their frames with a basic prescription are just $95!   I’m trying to decide whether to go to the local store, outside my 8-mile radius, to try frames on or to take advantage of their Home Try-On program.  The program allows customers to choose 5 frame styles online and have them delivered to my home to try for 5 days.  Pretty cool, right?

As far as this week is concerned, I am anxious about all that’s on our schedule and the fact that Tim won’t be around much to help with the schedule.  Our carpool group consists of 3 families and I feel like we’re definitely not putting in a fair share this week but that’s because of my eye procedure Tuesday and Tim’s schedule the rest of the week.  With Madelyn being in elementary school and Sebastian in high school, it can be difficult for one parent to pull of transportation to and from for both.  There are millions of single moms that do it though, so who am I to complain?  It’s when the kids activities overlap like his tutoring is from 5-6 while her piano class on the other side of town is also from 5-5:30, that I get overwhelmed.   Granted, that kind of overlapping is not common but even figuring out in my head how to coordinate be at Sebastian’s school to pick he and his carpool buddies up from school at 3:30, with Madelyn in the car who got home at 3:00, who gets car sick easily, and having to get to one of her classes by 4 or 5.. it’s a lot!  There’s no time for downtime, a snack, to do homework, etc.. I NEVER expected to be a parent of kids who are on the go so much.  It’s not for any reason other than they are taking classes or participating in activities that they WANT to do.  But when it comes down to it; getting there, etc.. that’s when the anxiety sets in.

On that note, I’ll end this post and work on streamlining our schedule for this week!  I use my Moleskine weekly notebook but even it gets too cluttered to understand.  For years I used an amazing planner called the Busy Body Book.. I LOVED it. It allowed me to keep everyone’s schedule in columns, for each day but it was discontinued.  I wish Moleskine would come out with a family friendly weekly planner!

Note to readers: When I write posts like this (personal posts), I often don’t proofread it because I will then edit and delete for hours or never actually publish the post.  Run-on sentence and grammatical errors are to be expected. 🙂

The photograph of the flower at the top of this post is one taken by Sebastian at Leu Gardens in Orlando.

– Alicia