I'm Afraid

They say it takes a big man to admit he's afraid. Well, count me in that number because I'm afraid today. Once, while I was at work about two weeks ago, I had a strange thing happen to my right eye. It was like I had looked at a really bright light; I had that afterimage hanging in front of my eye. Only I hadn't looked at any light or any kind of sight that might have caused such an effect. And worse, unlike the usual kind, this one didn't go away in a few minutes. It took a couple of hours before it was gone.

This past weekend, I had a very similar issue. Sunday afternoon, while I was essentially redoing the fuel tank and fuel lines on the Ramcharger, I noticed that issue again. It was worse this time, covering a larger area. Also, while similar, it was slightly different this time in that it was a lot blurrier, and a larger area was actually somewhat blind. The spots looked like clouds, gray empty spots that I couldn't see through. "Well," I thought, "maybe it's like last time and it will go away in an hour or so." Not this time, though. These spots stuck around for the rest of the day while I worked on the truck. I thought at first that maybe I had gotten something in my eye, dirt, stray rust, or even (worse) gasoline or some other chemical. I had certainly been around a ton of all of those while crawling around under the truck. I thought that maybe I just hadn't noticed it before. I still held out hope that it would go away after a while, though. So I went to sleep Sunday night expecting that all would be well the next day.

Morning came and the blind spots were still there. They weren't terrible; I could still see (sort of) around them, and my left eye made up the difference (only my right eye was affected by this). So I could still drive and get around and do things. In fact, I spent most of the day Monday taking care of the remaining issues of getting the fuel leak fixed, rechecking the fuel lines, and getting the beast running again. But the spots didn't go away or even seem to get better. By about 2:00pm I was done and getting seriously worried. I'd had the spots for nearly 24 hours with no noticeable change. I called some doctors to see if they could get me in that afternoon, but no luck. So I finished up the day, went to class, gave a lecture for another instructor, then headed home.

Once home, Heidi did her usual great job of pampering me. The weekend was a rough one for us (I won't go into it all right now, but it might actually have an indirect effect on my vision situation). I was physically exhausted from removing the fuel tank not once, but twice, and also straining against frozen nuts and bolts, lifting the heavy tank and pushing it around, and beating the snot out of my hands (a normal condition for any mechanic, professional or otherwise...see Rule #2 about 2/3 of the way down in this post). To have all that AND not be able to see very well made it doubly difficult. Thinking I might have just had something in my eye, I did some eye washes both Sunday night and Monday night. It helped a little bit each time, but it didn't completely resolve the problem.

So today I was finally able to get in to see the doctor. She is not certain what I have that is causing this, though she did show me shots of my retina (I'd never seen it before, honestly, and it's rather cool and beautiful, in it's own way). She did say I have a very, very minor congenital cataract in my left eye, shaped very much like the flux capacitor from Back to the Future. But I digress. She said that I appear to have a vitreous detachment. This is actually quite normal, except it's more common in older folks and somewhat rare for people my age and younger. She saw that the condition appear to be a bit more widespread, though, in one quadrant of my right eye. This made her wonder if it represented something more systemic, because she could easily see from my retinal arteries and veins that I have high blood pressure. One of her assistants mentioned off-hand that she had a similar issue with her eyes right after her dad died. "That's apparently how my body dealt with the stress," she said.

This is where my fear comes in. I have a lot of stress lately, and thanks to family history, I have a propensity for high blood pressure. So I'm beginning to feel some fear about my lifestyle and my health. I'm not a partier or a drinker, and I've never touched drugs of any kind. I am beginning to feel troubled, though, that my very-high-stress life is affecting my health. I've run down the list of things for you before, but just as a reminder:

1. I have lots of debt, which translates into me needing to hold two good jobs to keep up with payments and keep my obligations under control. I am working on keeping expenses down (see the new truck, for example), but it's a long slog and I'm not much closer to being able to quit teaching yet. Finances are still somewhat touch-and-go, and this makes it worse. I'm not sure when this will be back under control, though I hope it is SOON.
2. My jobs are not exactly low-stress. First, my day job as a security analyst actually has a lot of pressure. I get paid well for doing it, but there's a lot that goes along with that. Second, to keep my teaching job I have to get a Masters degree, meaning I'm working my two jobs AND taking Masters-level courses in college.
3. I have a good-sized family, four kids, and one of those is an infant. They require lots of time and help from me.
4. I have my position on the Board of Directors at the boys' school. This is a fair amount of responsibility and does take some additional time.
5. There's always something happening with the divorce, fallout from the divorce, or side issues around the divorce (like my ex-wife and my current wife jockeying for position against each other in various areas).
5. While the FJ Cruiser was new and thus highly dependable, I'm still working out the kinks on the Ramcharger, and it has been a little difficult so far. For example, after all of this weekend's work, I didn't think I'd have her running to actually get me to class last night and to work today. Fortunately, I got her going just under the wire, but that's a little bit of excitement I really don't need.
6. I still have to find time for the usual housework assistance and other sundry stuff to keep life going smoothly.

As you can see, I have just a little bit going on. It might not be killing me, but it's certainly not helping. i'm very worried that I might end up losing my sight, or running myself into a very early grave. I know I'm young and relatively healthy, but how much longer is that going to hold up? In fact, tonight I even considered packing up as soon as it's feasible and moving back to Oklahoma. I'd have a pretty good support network there, and I could get working with my dad. That would probably be a lot lower-stress job than I currently have to maintain. I know it's probably not possible unless I really just have no other choice, because I need to be around for Katie and Connor for as long as I can. But if it will be better for me to be alive in Oklahoma than it would be for me to hold out as long as possible here and die early...I think I know what my choice would be. I am getting very concerned about my life and health, but unfortunately, I'm really not sure when this will get resolved. I guess it's another question of faith; can I trust that Jesus will get me through this and take me to a good place again?

Thanks for reading along.