It’s been a while since my last post and there is really not much of an excuse. I have been really busy at work, 2020 has been a bit of an asshole and I am sure everyone has stories and experiences from the year that are unusual or strange, so nobody really needed to hear about ours.
The main reason for the lack of content though has been my persistent illnesses and injuries, which came to an absolute pinnacle on Christmas Day. Previous entries referred to me detaching my retina in my right eye in March. This is an injury that sounds horrific, potentially can leave you blind and requires immediate surgery. In reality, the operation doesn’t hurt, the drugs they give you are incredible and the worst part is having to lay on your front for 3 days straight and having a gas bubble in your eye for 3 months.
Well I recovered well from that and had a brief period of time where I was as fit as an overweight, 40 year old with diabetes can be. I had avoided COVID despite playing fast and loose on the Casino boat petri dish of disease several times, I even managed a Christmas party or two in December. Florida gave up on any COVID restrictions about 15 minutes after the Chinese guy ate the bat, so we can quite literally go anywhere and do anything.
And so we hurtled towards Christmas where a fat man with a beard brings Fred yet another version of Monopoly we have to painfully play again and again, Harriet crying because she bankrupts Laura and then giving her all her money back so the never ending game can continue. Me head in my hands after 15 minutes as nobody trades, nobody gets any hotels and nobody wins, as I spend countless hours as the banker trying to convince Fred he doesn’t need to pay the $36 rent for landing on Vermont St in $1 bills.
I did however have some annual leave left in December so I took a couple of days off before Christmas and arranged a game of golf. The day came and it was the first “cold” day I had seen in Florida for about a year. By cold I mean it was about 42 degrees when I teed off, about 5 degrees for those in every other country in the world that uses Celsius. This is genuinely cold, not Florida cold, but actually cold.
Still thinking I am a sprightly 21 year old I raced to the first tee, skipping any warm up or loosening exercises and got ready to rip an absolute bomb off down the first fairway. Perhaps not warming up was a bad idea as I immediately put my back out.
It’s OK I thought, it will loosen up after a few holes and I will be fine. Ever the optimist. By the 12th hole I couldn’t walk. By 14, I was laying down after every shot, By 16 I could barely hold the club let alone swing it. But winners do not quit and I made it round, came second and hobbled back to my truck where if the heated seats didn’t fix it, a steaming hot shower would.
3 days later and I am at urgent care watching student after student come in asking for a COVID test realizing it wasn’t free and leaving, while I was wheelchaired in for x-rays. $400 later and a prescription for hillbilly heroin in my pocket I am shuffling out, no better.
When my back goes, it goes for about 3 weeks, so by my calculations it would be rough but by Christmas Day I would be OK. Laura hates it when I can’t move, she thinks it’s an excuse so I don’t have to put the vacuum round, but I got us a robot vacuum so nobody has to. What it did mean though was everything was a struggle. Getting up, sitting down, standing up. It all hurt and it was an effort.
Going to the bathroom was also an effort, and without going into too much detail number 2 had a whole set of difficulties. Firstly pulling down my pants. I can’t bend so it’s just a case of kind of wiggle. Then actually sitting down. The toilet is low, I am tall, its a slow strenuous process. Follow that with the actual act, which again is trickier.
Cleaning up after is basically like one of those 750lb people washing themselves with a rag on a stick, and then I have to somehow get my clothes back up to my waist. What might be a 5-10 minute process basically became a 25 minute process.
And this led to the biggest issue over Christmas……
Nature was calling and I shuffled slowly to the smallest room in the house. It wasn’t going well. Basically and again without being too graphic, it felt like it was coming out sideways. I battled on and just at the point where I thought the worst was over I felt it. A little “pop” in my left eye.
I managed to detach the retina in my other eye having a shit.
The odds of this are astronomical. Millions to one at least. So on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day I was at the hospital being looked at, tested and then operated on.
Ever the loving nurse, Laura took the opportunity to suggest if I ate more fibre then it wouldn’t have happened, but as I sit here right now, gas bubble in my left eye, struggling to see that advice is not really hitting home.
So whilst I avoided COVID in 2020 my list of illnesses, operations and injuries read as follows;
Cataract surgery x2, detached right retina, vasectomy, skin cancer, right bundle branch block in heart, two herniated disks and detached right retina….
I will definitely outlive you all!
The Shroders in Florida 