Yesterday I went through three hours worth of examinations, beginning with a visual field test. This involved sticking my head in a bowl-shaped indentation in a computerized gizmo, covering one eye and staring at a small light at the back of the bowl. As lights flashed around the periphery of my vision I had to click a button at every sighting. Some of these lights were bright, others almost invisible. In fact, after six or seven minutes of this I began to imagine I was seeing lights and various other floating objects. After eight minutes, I was done with the first eye. Then I got to do it again. The tech told me that “the old people” sometimes fell asleep during the test. “At a party like this?” I said. She didn’t laugh.
Later, I had many pictures taken of my optic nerve. Apparently this part of the process required a flash roughly three times brighter than the surface of the sun.
I also had what turned out to be the most important test of the day. My eyes were numbed and the thickness of my corneas was measured. It turns out that my corneas are thicker than average. Much thicker. Which means that my pressure readings were inaccurate. When the new corneas measurement was factored in, my IOE pressure was well within normal range. I don’t have glaucoma.
Now I’m free to find something new to obsess about.
***
Here comes a massive surprise. I hope you’re sitting down.
I’m not going to finish The Firecracker Man by my self-imposed March 31st deadline. That’s the bad news. If it weren’t for holding down this 60-hour-a-week job, I might have done it.
The good news is that I’m fairly close to the end of the novel now, and today I managed to solve some storytelling problems that have been haunting me. So even though I’m blowing the deadline I had set, I feel good about where I am.
And believe me when I tell you it’s good to feel good.
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