The Retina specialist who saved my eyesight a few years ago (a diabetes thing) is more than an hour away, and visits there take between two and three hours. I only schedule appointments when I can see Dr. Falk, a wildly business eye surgeon specializing in retinal crisis.

I had one of those. One night, I noticed I could only see half of the letters in a book I read. There was swelling in the left eye that threatened to overwhelm the retina and block my eyesight. This is terrible news for anybody, but it was chilling for this writer and blogger.

Eye troubles with diabetics, especially retinal troubles, can be serious and very difficult to treat. Blindness is not rare.

At first, the doctors talked about sticking needles in my eye every month, prescribing powerful medications or surgeries, or perhaps finding out that they couldn’t help.

Dr. Falk jumped in and decided to perform laser surgery three times over a year. Maria had to drive me, as I couldn’t go after the drops they put in to open up my eyes.

It takes almost a whole day to get there and back and get checked and treated.

It is well worth it.

Maria is unfailingly gracious, even willing to sacrifice a belly dancing meeting. She has never once complained.

I saw so many retinal photographs that I was soon able to diagnose the problem  – swollen red dots closing in on the center of my eye.

Dr. Falk chose laser surgery as the most effective and least invasive surgery.

She was warm and funny and always let me take her photo, which I always put on the blog.

She says she is camera shy, but she knows how to pose and even puts the light on brighter in the examining room.

Her surgeries worked; the swelling moved far away from the retina, and I could see clearly and well. I see her t twice a year now, and she was happy with what she saw today.

Covid-19 caused some damage and swelling, but she said it was well away from the retina and thought it would decide as Covid receded.

I was relieved to hear this; the Covid scared me, as it affected my eyesight in the first weeks and still occasionally. I was glad to learn these problems were temporary, and my eyes would heal as my diabetes got back under control, which is happening.

I know many tools exist

for blind and impaired writers and artists, but not too many for photographers or bloggers.

I can’t say enough how grateful I am to Dr. Falk, who stepped in and saved my eyes from serious and looming trouble. My eyesight is excellent, except for some slight loss of vision in my right eye, which could also be Covid or, possibly, just getting older. The only swelling is in my left eye.

I can tell from looking at the color photographs of my idea just how they are doing and just where the swelling is.

I knew it was okay.

I will have no problems writing, reading, or driving; I just might need new glasses in a year or so. I’m seeing an optometrist at Saratoga Hospital next week.

We celebrated by finding an ice cream stand in Schaghticoke, one of the last ice cream stands to be still open.

Dr. Falk said it was a good day; she doesn’t need to see me for six months. That is always a good sign with my doctors.

And instead of three or four hours, the visit only took one. Maria got to her belly dancing class with time to spare, and I’m starting to see again after the dilation. I have a lot of writing to do.