The other day I was feeling very frustrated, angry and unsettled and I just wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. I don’t get this way to often but every now and then this happens. My poor husband David is thinking that he did something wrong and I didn’t realize that my mood was affecting him so deeply and I certainly didn’t mean to upset him. So he just gave me my space, which I appreciated.
First off I really hate it when a woman is having a bad day and the first thing people say especially men, is that she has PMS. You know every time a woman is in a bad mood or unhappy it doesn’t always have something to do with her hormones! Sometimes we actually have things happen in our lives that affect us emotionally! For me it is dealing with my visual impairment, sometimes it just gets to me and I get tired of being almost blind and the constant struggle that accompanies that.
I try very hard to deal with my life in a positive way and I try not to take my frustration out on others even though some people can be real assholes when it comes to dealing with my visual impairment! I have to admit that I am not always good at talking to others about what is on my mind. That is why blogging works for me. I am happy that I can speak openly to my two best friends my husband David and my friend of thirty-three years Tracey. So finally I broke down and had to admit to David that I was upset. As I said I felt bad because he thought I was angry with him and I certainly wasn’t. So this is what I told him and after I shared my feelings with him he suggested that I blog what I said to him and put it out there on cyberspace and the universe so here it is.
Living with a visual impairment can be very frustrating at times. Here in Creston Valley I am in my comfort zone I know my way around here and I know my way around the towns in my area. I have lived off and on in this valley for almost twenty-five years I guess by now I should pretty much know it like the back of my hand. So when I live my daily life I feel quite average and normal for the most part. Sometimes I even forget that I have a visual impairment and so do my friends.
My visual impairment is severe. I am blind in one eye and have about ten percent of my sight in the other. I don’t want to get into how I became visually impaired but if you are interested in reading more about this you can visit Living With A Visual Impairment on my website at www.artbymargaux.com.
There are times in my life when I am faced with things that make me realize just how blind I am and it really frightens me when I am faced with these challenges and this reality. A good example of this is when I went for surgery in Calgary. It was nothing life threatening nothing very dangerous. I was diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism and needed to get the effected parathyroid gland removed. My two surgeons Dr. Dort and Dr. Warshawski were both very nice. They were very straightforward about what was wrong with me and what needed to be done about it. They also both reassured me that I really didn’t need to be afraid.
When I had to go to Foothills Hospital for my surgery of course I was anxious this was only the second time that I have ever had surgery. The first time was for some cosmetic surgery that I had done on my blind eye and that was over twenty-five years ago in Vancouver. Of course being in a large city like Calgary means that I am no longer in my comfort zone and makes me realize just how impaired my vision is. Just a quick thought, I have to smile when I say large city because my husband David is from Toronto and actually thinks that Calgary is quite small. David finds his way around Calgary quite easily. Ok back to my story.
We stayed in Calgary for two nights I spent one of those in the hospital. So the first day we go there we found our hotel near the hospital then went to China Town for something to eat. We have crappy Chinese food here in Creston and I love Chinese food so it was a real treat for us.
The next morning we head to the hospital and I am getting ready for my day surgery. Foothills hospital is the largest hospital I have ever seen. I have lived in small towns all my life partly because of my visual impairment it is much easier for me to navigate a smaller place. I have been lucky and haven’t been in hospitals much except to visit others. My husband stayed with me for as long as they would allow him to. So many people asking me questions and everything is so unfamiliar it was all quite disorienting. At one point both my surgeons came in to see me just before the surgery. I was terrified but not so much about the surgery because I was so well informed as to what was going to happen, I was more frightened about everything else the lack of control and the unfamiliarity of everything I was completely intimidated by this. Dr. Warshawski told me not to be afraid, I know he had no idea as to what exactly it was that I was afraid of. I am not even sure if he knew that I was legally blind. I am not sure if I told him or Dr. Dort about my visual impairment. I don’t know maybe he thought I was just being a forty-four baby over a little day surgery? Who knows I guess it really doesn’t matter he and Dr. Dort were there to do their job and a good job they did indeed. I know that I was in very good hands…
Before the surgery I was asked many questions one of the concerns that they had was protecting my eyes so they took extra precautions. Of course this freaked me out completely and at this point I started to cry. Damn it I really didn’t want to cry and I was doing so well. I struggle so hard to be a strong person and there is nothing I hate more then crying in front of people! What little vision I have is important to me my art is so detailed and I wouldn’t be able to do my artwork any more if my vision got any worse. Even with the vision that I have it is a struggle for me to draw. Even though I use visual aids it is a strain on my eyes, my neck and my back. I have chronic back and neck pain because I have to stoop to get so close to the paper when I draw!
I remember walking into the operating room and feeling like I wanted to bolt. I don’t know what it is but I have an absolute phobia of people wearing hospital uniforms. I could see those same people in their street clothes and I am fine but they put on those uniforms and my heart races and I feel nauseated even white lab coats freak me out. There has to be reasons for this you don’t just become afraid of something like that for nothing I am sure some shrink would figure it out lol. So I am standing in the operating room and thinking what would they do if I just turned and ran? I am wondering if anyone has ever done that before? If I did run how much trouble would I get into or would they just not care and get on with other things? That thought left me quite quickly when I realized that because of my visual impairment I probably wouldn’t be able to find my way out of the hospital that easily. So of course this made me feel even more trapped and confined and I hated it and I hated my self for being so fearful and thinking this way! These people do surgery all the time so I don’t know if they can even tell how I am feeling or if I looked calm because I sure didn’t feel calm. From my prospective I felt I must have looked like a deer in the headlights.
I lay down on the narrow table and they start to prepare me for surgery and at this point I can’t move because they have stuff attached to both my arms. I am muttering nervously about this and that you know I don’t really remember what I said but I am sure most of it was nonsense. I think I remember someone asking me why I had five holes in my ears but I can’t remember exactly what I said to them and I guess it really doesn’t matter. The one thing I really liked was the music in the background it was eighties music that I was familiar with and it was comforting. I was wondering who got to choose the music and I was very happy that they didn’t choose country! Oh God can you imagine falling asleep to some droning wining country song. I think something by Phil Collins was the last thing I heard before I was out.
It took them a while to find me a room but they finally found one for me in the burn ward. I really lucked out and got a private room all to myself with a television. I couldn’t really see the TV from my bed; at home I usually sit right in front of the TV on a chair but it was still a comforting to have the TV there and I listened to and sort of watched Murdoch Mysteries and the Calgary news. It helped to pass the time.
Once I was settled in my room it was so good to see my husband and mom their familiar faces were a great comfort since I spend most of the day feeling so disoriented, lost and turned around. After mom and David left that fear and discomfort started to settle in again. How lost I felt once again and I hate it when this happens but it does when I am in unfamiliar settings. I was watching the Calgary news and I started thinking what would I do if David and mom got killed in a car accident on the way back to their hotel. You hear of these things happening on the news all the time. I thought how would I get home what would I do? I tried to get this stupid thought out of my head I mean come on Margaux the hotel is only about three blocks away but then I realized I don’t even know if I could find my way back to our hotel and that stupid gripping fear got worse.
No I am not feeling sorry for myself these are legitimate concerns and unless someone can see the world through my eyes no one will truly understand. Yes here I am in my private room surrounded by burn victims who I can hear suffering and I felt bad for them and thought of the difficult road that they had ahead of them recovering from their injuries. Most of them will recover eventually but no matter what I do my vision will never get better and thank God it is not supposed to get worse but living with this on a daily basis does get tiresome.
I am a very free spirited person and sometimes I feel trapped in my own body sometimes I feel like I am on a tether and the world is just out of my reach. I think this is why I have always lived in small towns. This is part of the reason why I never got a career even though I always wanted one. Because I am limited when it comes to traveling I haven’t been able to properly promote my own artwork. Thank God David can help me with that now and my parents helped me as much as they could in the past. Yes I know I am supposed to focus on the things that I can do but there are so many things that I can’t do that it is difficult sometimes to over look them.
When I was going to school you couldn’t pass your grade unless you passed physical education. I know it is important to be active but in looking back schools putting such emphasis on PE was really stupid. So if you got good grades in everything else they wouldn’t pass you if you failed PE! So here I am I can’t play any sports that involve the use of a ball so I spent a lot of time doing nothing and feeling very left out and of course my classmates often made fun of me. Fortunately there were a few things that got me my passing grade for PE. I could run like the wind very few people could catch me even some of the guys. How ironic is that, a blind woman who can run really fast. I think I inherited this from my dad who could also run very fast. I was also good at floor gymnastics. I couldn’t do anything on the uneven bars or the horse you need depth perception for that and with monocular vision I don’t have that. Anything I do that involves depth perception I learn with practice. I also could dance so when they did any of these things in PE I could be involved and it barely got me my passing grade.
I am a very active person and if I had good eyesight I probably would do much more then I am now. I stay in shape by working with free weights and on my treadmill. I love to explore caves and when I lived in Idaho we did this a few times and it was a lot of fun! I would like to try repelling some day I am hoping David and I can do this. He tried it and said it was a lot of fun. I would probably love skiing even though I am not a huge fan of the snow and cold the challenge would be nice but it would be a very difficult thing for me to do. We never got around to it but a friend of mine who is very skilled skier was going to take me skiing one time she was going to ski in front of me and have me follow exactly what she did. She figured if she acted as my eyes I would be able to go a lot faster then if I was on my own. I am sure it would have worked and who knows maybe I may get a chance to do this. Well it had better happen soon though I am not getting any younger!
Anyway I hope none of you see this blog as self-pity because it certainly isn’t meant to be that way I am simply sharing my feelings with you. Letting people know how frustrating it can be sometimes. Yes we all have our limitations and I get tired of people telling me this. When I express myself in this way I am not always looking for an answer sometimes I am just wanting someone to listen and to learn. Aside from being quadriplegic I think limited eyesight is one of the most difficult disabilities for someone to deal with because we rely on our eyesight for pretty much everything we do.
So I will plod along and live my life and for the most part do this quite happily. Every now and then the stress gets to me but I will get through it I always do. Even though I get pissed off about a lot of things I suppose in the end these experiences will make me a stronger person either that or I will go insane! Maybe I will just become a crazy cat lady. Oh that’s right I already am one!
First off I really hate it when a woman is having a bad day and the first thing people say especially men, is that she has PMS. You know every time a woman is in a bad mood or unhappy it doesn’t always have something to do with her hormones! Sometimes we actually have things happen in our lives that affect us emotionally! For me it is dealing with my visual impairment, sometimes it just gets to me and I get tired of being almost blind and the constant struggle that accompanies that.
I try very hard to deal with my life in a positive way and I try not to take my frustration out on others even though some people can be real assholes when it comes to dealing with my visual impairment! I have to admit that I am not always good at talking to others about what is on my mind. That is why blogging works for me. I am happy that I can speak openly to my two best friends my husband David and my friend of thirty-three years Tracey. So finally I broke down and had to admit to David that I was upset. As I said I felt bad because he thought I was angry with him and I certainly wasn’t. So this is what I told him and after I shared my feelings with him he suggested that I blog what I said to him and put it out there on cyberspace and the universe so here it is.
Living with a visual impairment can be very frustrating at times. Here in Creston Valley I am in my comfort zone I know my way around here and I know my way around the towns in my area. I have lived off and on in this valley for almost twenty-five years I guess by now I should pretty much know it like the back of my hand. So when I live my daily life I feel quite average and normal for the most part. Sometimes I even forget that I have a visual impairment and so do my friends.
My visual impairment is severe. I am blind in one eye and have about ten percent of my sight in the other. I don’t want to get into how I became visually impaired but if you are interested in reading more about this you can visit Living With A Visual Impairment on my website at www.artbymargaux.com.
There are times in my life when I am faced with things that make me realize just how blind I am and it really frightens me when I am faced with these challenges and this reality. A good example of this is when I went for surgery in Calgary. It was nothing life threatening nothing very dangerous. I was diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism and needed to get the effected parathyroid gland removed. My two surgeons Dr. Dort and Dr. Warshawski were both very nice. They were very straightforward about what was wrong with me and what needed to be done about it. They also both reassured me that I really didn’t need to be afraid.
When I had to go to Foothills Hospital for my surgery of course I was anxious this was only the second time that I have ever had surgery. The first time was for some cosmetic surgery that I had done on my blind eye and that was over twenty-five years ago in Vancouver. Of course being in a large city like Calgary means that I am no longer in my comfort zone and makes me realize just how impaired my vision is. Just a quick thought, I have to smile when I say large city because my husband David is from Toronto and actually thinks that Calgary is quite small. David finds his way around Calgary quite easily. Ok back to my story.
We stayed in Calgary for two nights I spent one of those in the hospital. So the first day we go there we found our hotel near the hospital then went to China Town for something to eat. We have crappy Chinese food here in Creston and I love Chinese food so it was a real treat for us.
The next morning we head to the hospital and I am getting ready for my day surgery. Foothills hospital is the largest hospital I have ever seen. I have lived in small towns all my life partly because of my visual impairment it is much easier for me to navigate a smaller place. I have been lucky and haven’t been in hospitals much except to visit others. My husband stayed with me for as long as they would allow him to. So many people asking me questions and everything is so unfamiliar it was all quite disorienting. At one point both my surgeons came in to see me just before the surgery. I was terrified but not so much about the surgery because I was so well informed as to what was going to happen, I was more frightened about everything else the lack of control and the unfamiliarity of everything I was completely intimidated by this. Dr. Warshawski told me not to be afraid, I know he had no idea as to what exactly it was that I was afraid of. I am not even sure if he knew that I was legally blind. I am not sure if I told him or Dr. Dort about my visual impairment. I don’t know maybe he thought I was just being a forty-four baby over a little day surgery? Who knows I guess it really doesn’t matter he and Dr. Dort were there to do their job and a good job they did indeed. I know that I was in very good hands…
Before the surgery I was asked many questions one of the concerns that they had was protecting my eyes so they took extra precautions. Of course this freaked me out completely and at this point I started to cry. Damn it I really didn’t want to cry and I was doing so well. I struggle so hard to be a strong person and there is nothing I hate more then crying in front of people! What little vision I have is important to me my art is so detailed and I wouldn’t be able to do my artwork any more if my vision got any worse. Even with the vision that I have it is a struggle for me to draw. Even though I use visual aids it is a strain on my eyes, my neck and my back. I have chronic back and neck pain because I have to stoop to get so close to the paper when I draw!
I remember walking into the operating room and feeling like I wanted to bolt. I don’t know what it is but I have an absolute phobia of people wearing hospital uniforms. I could see those same people in their street clothes and I am fine but they put on those uniforms and my heart races and I feel nauseated even white lab coats freak me out. There has to be reasons for this you don’t just become afraid of something like that for nothing I am sure some shrink would figure it out lol. So I am standing in the operating room and thinking what would they do if I just turned and ran? I am wondering if anyone has ever done that before? If I did run how much trouble would I get into or would they just not care and get on with other things? That thought left me quite quickly when I realized that because of my visual impairment I probably wouldn’t be able to find my way out of the hospital that easily. So of course this made me feel even more trapped and confined and I hated it and I hated my self for being so fearful and thinking this way! These people do surgery all the time so I don’t know if they can even tell how I am feeling or if I looked calm because I sure didn’t feel calm. From my prospective I felt I must have looked like a deer in the headlights.
I lay down on the narrow table and they start to prepare me for surgery and at this point I can’t move because they have stuff attached to both my arms. I am muttering nervously about this and that you know I don’t really remember what I said but I am sure most of it was nonsense. I think I remember someone asking me why I had five holes in my ears but I can’t remember exactly what I said to them and I guess it really doesn’t matter. The one thing I really liked was the music in the background it was eighties music that I was familiar with and it was comforting. I was wondering who got to choose the music and I was very happy that they didn’t choose country! Oh God can you imagine falling asleep to some droning wining country song. I think something by Phil Collins was the last thing I heard before I was out.
It took them a while to find me a room but they finally found one for me in the burn ward. I really lucked out and got a private room all to myself with a television. I couldn’t really see the TV from my bed; at home I usually sit right in front of the TV on a chair but it was still a comforting to have the TV there and I listened to and sort of watched Murdoch Mysteries and the Calgary news. It helped to pass the time.
Once I was settled in my room it was so good to see my husband and mom their familiar faces were a great comfort since I spend most of the day feeling so disoriented, lost and turned around. After mom and David left that fear and discomfort started to settle in again. How lost I felt once again and I hate it when this happens but it does when I am in unfamiliar settings. I was watching the Calgary news and I started thinking what would I do if David and mom got killed in a car accident on the way back to their hotel. You hear of these things happening on the news all the time. I thought how would I get home what would I do? I tried to get this stupid thought out of my head I mean come on Margaux the hotel is only about three blocks away but then I realized I don’t even know if I could find my way back to our hotel and that stupid gripping fear got worse.
No I am not feeling sorry for myself these are legitimate concerns and unless someone can see the world through my eyes no one will truly understand. Yes here I am in my private room surrounded by burn victims who I can hear suffering and I felt bad for them and thought of the difficult road that they had ahead of them recovering from their injuries. Most of them will recover eventually but no matter what I do my vision will never get better and thank God it is not supposed to get worse but living with this on a daily basis does get tiresome.
I am a very free spirited person and sometimes I feel trapped in my own body sometimes I feel like I am on a tether and the world is just out of my reach. I think this is why I have always lived in small towns. This is part of the reason why I never got a career even though I always wanted one. Because I am limited when it comes to traveling I haven’t been able to properly promote my own artwork. Thank God David can help me with that now and my parents helped me as much as they could in the past. Yes I know I am supposed to focus on the things that I can do but there are so many things that I can’t do that it is difficult sometimes to over look them.
When I was going to school you couldn’t pass your grade unless you passed physical education. I know it is important to be active but in looking back schools putting such emphasis on PE was really stupid. So if you got good grades in everything else they wouldn’t pass you if you failed PE! So here I am I can’t play any sports that involve the use of a ball so I spent a lot of time doing nothing and feeling very left out and of course my classmates often made fun of me. Fortunately there were a few things that got me my passing grade for PE. I could run like the wind very few people could catch me even some of the guys. How ironic is that, a blind woman who can run really fast. I think I inherited this from my dad who could also run very fast. I was also good at floor gymnastics. I couldn’t do anything on the uneven bars or the horse you need depth perception for that and with monocular vision I don’t have that. Anything I do that involves depth perception I learn with practice. I also could dance so when they did any of these things in PE I could be involved and it barely got me my passing grade.
I am a very active person and if I had good eyesight I probably would do much more then I am now. I stay in shape by working with free weights and on my treadmill. I love to explore caves and when I lived in Idaho we did this a few times and it was a lot of fun! I would like to try repelling some day I am hoping David and I can do this. He tried it and said it was a lot of fun. I would probably love skiing even though I am not a huge fan of the snow and cold the challenge would be nice but it would be a very difficult thing for me to do. We never got around to it but a friend of mine who is very skilled skier was going to take me skiing one time she was going to ski in front of me and have me follow exactly what she did. She figured if she acted as my eyes I would be able to go a lot faster then if I was on my own. I am sure it would have worked and who knows maybe I may get a chance to do this. Well it had better happen soon though I am not getting any younger!
Anyway I hope none of you see this blog as self-pity because it certainly isn’t meant to be that way I am simply sharing my feelings with you. Letting people know how frustrating it can be sometimes. Yes we all have our limitations and I get tired of people telling me this. When I express myself in this way I am not always looking for an answer sometimes I am just wanting someone to listen and to learn. Aside from being quadriplegic I think limited eyesight is one of the most difficult disabilities for someone to deal with because we rely on our eyesight for pretty much everything we do.
So I will plod along and live my life and for the most part do this quite happily. Every now and then the stress gets to me but I will get through it I always do. Even though I get pissed off about a lot of things I suppose in the end these experiences will make me a stronger person either that or I will go insane! Maybe I will just become a crazy cat lady. Oh that’s right I already am one!
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