Sorry about the caps and all, but this is an extremely big deal to me.  For years–more than five, anyway–this cataract thing has been developing, my eyesight has been slipping away bit by bit, to the point  that I am blind in my right eye, and have kinda  fuzzy vision in my left (stage four and stage one cataracts, respectively).

Anyway, all this time I have been thinking that I’d get this fixed someday.  Never a specific time or date–just someday, way ahead in the future.

And now, someday is tomorrow.  Kathy will fire up her trusty Jeep, drive me into the surgery place, check into our motel, and come back to get me.

I am excited, anticipatory, grateful, slightly awed–oh, and scared to death.

See, for over half a century I have been training my self to be protective of my eleys.  And tomrrow, I will have to sit still, wide awake, when this big needle goes into my eye for the express purpose of destroying my lens.  Jeez, now I wish I had not written that.  Scary stuff.

I assume they know what they are doing. 

I will put my eyes in their hands.

So to speak.

Kathy drove me to Anchorage yesterday for my pre-surgery exams and tests and all–and I got a huge shock.

Since I only have enough money in the FBO account for one cataract operation, I had planned to put off the other one until I was on Medicare.  That ain’t happenin’.  It seems that my myopia is so severe, they want to do both eyes the same week, even though my left eye has only a stage one cataract.

They worked out a payment plan where I pay half the day of the surgery, then make monthly payments of $594 for the next six months.  Right now, I don’t know where the money will come from.  The Farmers Market is today, which usually brings in between $100 and $200, but it is rained out today.

I’m not worried, though.  I recall years ago, not long before I went bankrupt, and Kathy would juggle stuff all around, paying off one credit card with another credit card.  It all worked out in the end, and so will this.