The Eyes Have It - A de-I Medical Systems Saga

Long time readers know de-I's great love for the medical system, particularly things like emergency rooms, urgent care facilities, hospitals, surgical procedures, etc.  Most of my recent experiences have been associated with Wife's trials and tribulations. However, my latest experience was my own, getting cataract replacement surgery. 

Before I go through the drama and gory details, I will just let you know that the first eye procedure has ended up just fine (so far). But the process of getting here has been, as usual, not the cleanest and smoothest process. 

The Preliminaries  

I've known for quite some time that cataracts were forming. But I had been told that they were not bad enough to warrant the surgery. About 3 years ago, I got a new eye doctor (I have glaucoma so am on regular testing and watch) when my long-time doctor retired. The new one stopped even mentioning what was going on with the cataracts. But over the last year and a half I noticed a distinct drop in my overall vision capability despite my testing fine at the eye doctor. I thought I needed a new glasses prescription, but that didn't help. Finally in November, I asked my doctor about the problem and if it could be cataracts. She said she didn't deal with cataracts and they set me up for an appointment with that specialty area. 

The Decision 

I use a very large eye doctor practice. To get an appointment with my regular doctor can require a six to eight month window before they can find an opening. The cataract surgery group? I was in within days. They do their check up and pronounce that I am a candidate. Would I like the surgery done in four days? By the way, we have these cool special lens, not covered by insurance that will only cost you two grand. Here sign these approval papers. There just in case you decide you want them. You're not making any commitments. Yes we are going to have you out of your glasses and...

WHAT! WAIT! Hold On. I have travel and stuff and need to think about how I schedule it. I have worn glasses practically my whole life. I watch people fumbling around with their readers and their sunglasses and that doesn't look like a better lifestyle to me. And my left eye is a piece of shit that barely works and will need correction no matter what we do with the cataracts.

By the time I leave the surgery scheduling, my mind is spinning and I'm not sure at all what I am actually getting.

Surgery 

The surgery was scheduled for December 30. Looking at the nicely printed jacket they give you that holds all your information for pre, day of, and post surgery, I notice the very high quality photos of the THIRTEEN CATARACT SURGEONS in this practices department. I am thinking the make a helluva a lot of money on this procedure.

Most of my trepidation about this procedure has to do with how I'm going to function with only one eye repaired. The other won't be done for another month. I won't be able to use my glasses, and I'm not quite certain what I'm getting. I'm pretty sure I told them to fix the short vision and keep my needing glasses for the long vision (there are all kinds of options they have for fixing one or the other in addition to getting rid of the cataracts.)

It's a busy day at the surgery center. This is out patient stuff. It will take around 3 hours, most of which is waiting in all its medical system forms - waiting to go in, waiting to be looked at, waiting to have preliminary work done, waiting for them to finally take you to the OR. Waiting in the OR. Until you finally have the procedure which takes all of 15 minutes. 

Oh, forgot to tell you about the ongoing issue with the super lens you have to pay for. I go to check in and they say, "You have a payment due for your super snazzy not insurance covered lens. I explain (a bit miffed) that I didn't order it. That the scheduling people said I should sign the authorization 'in case I changed my mind.' Well I'm not changing my mind. So I have to wait while they call back and get it approved for just a normal lens. Then when I'm being prepped, the lens tech comes in and tells me all about the snazzy new lens I'm getting. So I have to tell HER that no, I'm just getting the regular lens. 

She goes off to get the regular lens. I'm thinking, "What if I let them put in the snazzy new lens?" Would they come back and charge me for it?" I'm glad I didn't, I don't need the hassle of the fight.

The surgery is done with just local numbing anesthetics and some mild sedatives if you want them. I used a little bit but I think for the second eye I will do without. They don't let you have alcohol afterwards if you've had the sedatives, and I want a drink afterwards. 

Post-Op 

 You eye is feeling pretty miserable and there is some pain (but Nothing, NOTHING like having your kidney removed) and as I feared I really couldn't see much of anything clearly between the healing right eye, my good eye, and my relatively useless left eye. I'm still freaking out about this. The next day you go in for a post-op check-up. They are telling me everything is looking good and my eyesight will be pretty awesome once everything heals up and I can get both eyes ready to be re-eye glassed. And they give me a pair of 'loaner glasses for my long vision. Guess what, they work! We walk out and everything looks clear, bright and colorful. Wife is ready to kill me because on the drive home, I'm reading every sign at distance I can because I haven't been able to for two years. 

I feel like I have a semi-opaque screen over the operated eye. Did I sleep wrong and put pressure on it? Have I knocked the lens out of kilter? It's New Year's Day so I can't call to find out what might be wrong. But by afternoon, everything seems to have cleared up. I go online and check on what the normal recovery sequence is for this surgery. Oh, it's going to take a lot longer than I thought, and a lot of my issues are pretty normal. Guess it would have been smart to done this research BEFORE the operation.

For the next few days, it seems that it takes 5 or so hours before the eye 'warms-up' and everything is working as it should. It is a little weird and annoying to have to take my glasses off to read short and work on the computer. And the short vision is not perfect. I'm sure I will still be needing trifocals, which is fine, as long as the haze of the cataracts are gone.

In mid February I will have the second eye done. But I will not get my final set of glasses until we get back from our SE Asia Trip when all should be healed and settled.  

 

Yes! We Are An Incredibly Serious Family

 I am sure that many of you when you read my posts related to the family and their visiting might think we are bit less than serious. YOU WOULD BE WRONG. We are a serious and sober family. Cotton Mather and Massachusetts Puritans would feel frivolous compared to the de-I/Wife clan. Even though the #3 arm of the clan is in Sweden, we often have very engaged and deeply thoughtful text chats. Here is an only very slightly edited version of one that took place just this morning related to daughter #3's love for the breakfast cereal, Grapenuts, which she sadly cannot find in Sweden.

3.1 - Mom we have constructed your perfect burger: lettuce or two thin slices of brown bread with stuff in it for burger bun, a two Patty burger with one being halloumi and the other a bean patty, with mushrooms, tomatoes. Onion, aubergine and broccoli, with a side of a salad WITH Dutch frieten and mayo and your dessert is Grapenuts DQ

 

3A - The burger would be 50%+ broccoli though. And, we are not sure if there would be more Grapenuts than ice cream in the DQ dessert

 

de-I - Is this something that has actually been achieved or will be achieved soon. Or is this a theoretical construct

 

3.1 - Theoretical, for now…Until mom sees it of course.

 

#3 - I will bring Grapenuts next time to DQ...

 

3.2 – 3.1, are you offering to make it?

 

de-I -Yes Yes Yes. It must be done now 3.1!

 

3A - Don't force them to tap the NO GRAPE NUTS!! sign again

 

#3 - *sigh* if only extra Grapenuts were an option every where

 

3.2 - I'm looking at you Burger King!!!!

 

de-I - If Grapenuts were everywhere we would end up with things like frieten with Grapenuts mayo, Grapenuts Potato Salad, and our pizza would come with a packet of Grapenuts to sprinkle over each slice. Best the remain a hard to find US breakfast food

 

3.2 - Personally I think that mom would love if the world was taken over by Grapenuts.....Buuuut from a health standpoint maybe its best if Grapenuts aren't everywhere

 

de-I - If you could find something that would bind Grapenuts together, you could form a statue based on your Mother’s image and it would become the goddess of the Grapenuts cult! 😃

 

3.2 - Whose gonna provide the Grapenuts tho? You think I'm made of Grapenuts?

 

de-I - I will. I will bring them in September. We will have to hide them from Mums or she will eat them before you can create the idol.

de-I - You should be honored that you are deified as their cult Goddess. This will entitle you to rent a place on the lowest slum slopes of Mount Olympus where the Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel resides. Then you could become the Magical Sales Manager Goddess of Grapenuts!

 

#3 - 🤩, MSMGG! Has a nice ring to it.

 

de-I - I’m telling you deification has a lot of upsides

 

#3 - All of this just makes me want Grapenuts

 

3.2 - Are we supposed to be learning of this? Or is it a secret cult?

 

de-I - Well as one of the cult founders you kind of need to know. How can you sculpt the idol of the demi-Goddess if you are unaware of the cult?

 

#3 - OMG marshmallow cereal treats made of Grapenuts!! Birthday cake sorted 3.2

 

de-I – 3.2, The Magical Sales Manager Goddess of Grapenuts speaks!

 

3.2 - WHAT??? NO!!!!

 And thus do we as a family deal with the true and deep issues of the day.

 

 

Pizza Notes - 2025

This post is primarily as a note to Wife and myself. We have been amazingly consistent over the long years at making observations about various things (cooking and otherwise), never writing them down, and then promptly forgetting. When it comes time to do that thing again, we, of course, are working from our faulty memory. 

NOT TODAY.

We make pizza from scratch once a year, on Christmas. One would think we would have the process totally refined by now. We don't. Because we never document what we did. That changes today. 

Dough

• We are using the 'Bobby Flay Quick Rising' recipe.
• In order to get a truly thin crust one must let the dough balls rest at least 30 minutes or more so the gluten relaxes. This allows working the dough to a much thinner thickness.

The Cheese

•  We used a fresh mozzarella that was pre-sliced.
• Putting the slices on the pizza resulted in uneven cheese distribution.
• Tearing them into smaller pieces created more even coverage.

Toppings

•  Resist the temptation to put too many toppings on...or rather, have the toppings be too thick. With a thin crust pizza, it results in imbalance.
• Mushrooms - I used one small container for one batch of dough. Not enough.
• Onions - I tried using green onions because I thought they would cook faster. Not as flavorful. Go back to white or yellow onions.
• Meatballs - I tried using moistened breadcrumbs to lighten them. Big mistake. The bread crumbs clumped up and I had to fish them out of the ground meat. Either try moistened stale bread or just the dry bread crumbs. 

 The Sauce

•  After a number of years playing around with a more meat forward tomato sauce, I went back to a version of my original sauce developed in the 1970's.
• Equal amounts of onion, green bell pepper, celery and carrots, with around 6 large garlic cloves to 5-6 cans of Italian tomatoes.
• Salt, pepper, 1-Serrano Chile, oregano, and MSG.  
• I use a pressure cooker technique so do not cut the veg fine. I leave them in large chunks, still saute them, and cook for 20 minutes at the #1 setting. 
• Then use an immersion blender to make the uniform sauce when it is all cooked.
• We used this with both the lasagna earlier, as well as the pizza and it was excellent. 

Temperature and Time

• Convection Roast 550 degrees
• Six minutes 

 Pizza Progression 

 

Version 1 with all the toppings and not having let the dough rest enough.

Tasty but not the thinness or balance desired.

 

 

 

 Version 2 - Crust now the desired thickness. But the cheese was still in slices and not equal on the pizza

 

 

 

 Version 3 - This is what we want all next year to be like. It was so good we almost forgot to take a picture.

 

 

 

Aftermath - What Life Is LIke Once Vikings Escape

Having the Viking Expeditionary Force from Sweden fulfilled one of my great dreams as the founder and manager of de-I Sandia Outfitters Albuquerque Resort and Penal Colony. Namely having an Entire Family at my beck and call! How Cool Is That! The Elders knew they had to get up early every morning and have my coffee prepared for me. The Youngers were sent into the kitchen to do all kinds of labor intensive food preparation. The Elders were commanded by Wife to replant an ENTIRE GROWN TREE. Finally the Norse Warriors had had enough and tried to escape, only to find that de-I had conspired with the Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel to have their plane delayed. They had to remain another whole day and thoroughly clean the facility before we allowed them to finally go. Of course, I asked if they had had a good time despite having been put into virtual slavery and reminded them to put a good review up on Google. As 3.2 said, "No problem de-I, we Vikings are used to being slaves." These are the kind of guests that make running Sandia Outfitters worthwhile. 

Okay...Now the Serious Part

It was totally lovely having family with us. I was really quite amazed at how well we all got along. Anytime you have family groups together for long periods it can be difficult. Different habits. Different patterns, But all-in-all, it worked out just fine. I think it helps that the house is large enough that everyone can have a place to be alone.

And we got to have family for the holiday. We even did our whole holiday festivities early to take advantage of everyone being here. The #3's were a huge help, doing all kinds of work helping set-up and take down Christmas decorations, helping us with things that needed to be done around the house. 

Seriously 3.1 and 3.2 did major work in the kitchen. 3.1 did a ton of the work for the Christmas goodie making as 3.2 got sick and the adults all had other things that needed to be done that day. 

Then there was the 'RAVIOLI EPISODE'. The one thing 3.1 and 3.2 said they wanted to try was making Ravioli from scratch. So that we did.

 Viking Warriors Realizing the Reality of the Their Captivity

 Making the sheets for filled requires more precision that regular homemade pasta

It took a couple of tries before we got the knack of the technique

Not so good

 Better

 

 Seeking perfection despite harassment

 Finished product

 Aftermath

They cooked up fine. We discovered that despite all the effort, there were not enough to feed everyone so we made additional pasta and sauced it with the filling material of which we had a lot leftover. The general consensus...they were okay, not great. Even though we rolled out the pasta sheets to the thinnest setting, the pasta still seemed to overpower the filling. And, as a number of us commented (me included), we don't actually like ravioli that much. An interesting experiment that will not be repeated. 

Being gluttons for punishment, only days later we were at it again making Lasagna for our 'early Christmas' dinner. I totally stuck to my traditional recipe devised decades ago in the 70's.

It came out extremely good.

 

 

 It was finally time to release the VEFS. We need them to be strong next year to continue the Re-reconquista.

3.2 giving me a goodbye squeeze, asking me to explain the Stockholm Syndrome as she is looking forward to returning.

 

 And I look mournfully at the place where my coffee has been made for over 10 days and realize I am going to have to make my own.

A Viking Expeditionary Force From Sweden Christmas

The word came from far off Malmö Sweden in the early Fall.

"Greetings New Mexicans. I, #3, Chieftainess of the VEFS have determined that our band of hearty warriors and screen watchers wish a warmer place to visit during the Winter break from pillaging. As our blood kin, surely you will let us sneak through your country's inane new international visit system and allow us to soak up your Southwestern Sun. Send us word of your blessings."

How could one not respond to such a well worded invitation. We responded.

"#3, may your warrior skull cup overflow with Kombucha. May we remember their contributions to the Re-Reconquista in Spain this past Fall the the previous Fall as well. We have booked you in the renowned de-I Sandia Outfitters palatial ABQ Foothills Resort and Penal Colony. (When confirming your reservation BE SURE to check the 'resort' box and not the 'penal colony' box.). Simply fill in the request for all your financial accounts with user names and passwords and you will have set yourself up for the most wonderful time her in the Land of Entrapment."

 Last Friday they arrived.

They had had to pay bribes in Dallas to get through the crazy back up of security line to make their flight. But they were truly wowed by the luxury of their accommodations. 

"Look Love, We actually have a BED to sleep on this time," 3A exclaimed.

3.2 after experiencing the Japanese style bidet toilet her accommodations featured exclaimed, "This is the greatest toilet experience EVER!"

Our guests were so happy, they broke out into the traditional dance celebration of their people.

 And of course, if one has Vikings, one must prepare massive quantities of MEAT!

 

We have many more activities coming up in the days ahead.

"How Cool Is That?" - The Mantra Of Gratitude

About the same time as I was making my decisions related to what I want to be doing with my tangible time going forward, another crisis of consciousness (or the heart) was coming to a head. It was the fact that I was not particularly happy. I have found over the last year that I have become more and more frustrated over things, even little things in life. And my level of worry has increased too, even though things are going just fine in every aspect. 

So I did some deep contemplation. Despite my having done spiritual practices for close to a half a century, I felt in a lot of ways I was going through the motions. I felt dry. What did I need to do to change that? There were two things I felt would really help change my attitude. One was focusing on Gratitude. The other was becoming more Trusting. I decided the former was the one I wanted to tackle first. 

I've tried this before, focusing on Gratitude, without much success. Looking back, I decided that I had made the attempts to be Gratitude focused to analytical, too much of making a list of things. But Gratitude isn't a number. It is a feeling. So how do I make myself FEEL grateful?

I started with my house. I have a beautiful house. Truly beautiful. There is so much beauty actually in my house and my surroundings. But, it is human nature I think to stop focusing on all those little things. They just become part of the background. I started to look at each little thing with appreciation. What came out out of my mind and heart was this phrase,

HOW COOL IS THIS!

For the first day or so, it was a very interesting exercise. No. It was more than that. Those simple, if somewhat trite, words captured emotion. When I looked at some lovely thing that I had ignored for a while and said "How Cool Is That" I awakened feelings of appreciation within me. 

I decided to keep going with the experiment. Sometimes it seems a bit weird to use this as my focus words. And it has been less than a week. But I can feel a big change in my attitude. Today I had a number of little things go wrong that I was able to see in a different light. It seemed a bit forced to say "How cool was this" for them, but I was still in that appreciative state of mind. 

Maybe it is just using the words to put the focus positive and not negative. It is too early to tell. The true test will be if I can maintain this state of mind over a longer period. 

Wish me luck. 

The Quantum Physics Of Transition Continue With No End In Sight - Part II

Since I wrote the last transition post on Nov. 21, I have continued to do a lot of thinking and contemplating. A lot of it revolved around continuing to promote my consulting business. My overall attitude and enthusiasm continued be sour. The clients I have now are taking huge amounts of effort just to get them to do the things they should. I even tried to fire one of them this week (they said they would get better. Why would you pay someone and not listen to them?). 

And last Friday I turned 78. So many people who interact with me in the work environment were shocked. They all say I look and act like I'm in 60's. Let me tell you, I don't feel like I'm in my 60's. I told one, "You can make up a lot of mental illusions about how you are really not that old, but let me tell you when you are only 2 years away from 80 there is only one adjective that describes you - OLD."

I'm thinking, "If we are really getting ready for the last lap of the race what the heck do you want to be doing? I don't want to be beating people over the head to do what is best for them. I've done that for almost a half a century." 

But what DO I want to do?

Well travel. It is still the thing that truly floats my boat. There is an expiration date on being able to do that, However, Wife and I continue to adjust how we do our travel in ways that seems to extend how long we might be able to continue.

What else.

The social impact stuff. The job development work in Africa. That is the thing that is starting to finally come into its own. (I know I owe you post on that.) Go with the flow. What is working with the least effort (now). The social impact stuff. What is like pushing water up hill. The consulting work. Listen to the universe.

Then yesterday evening was sort of the kind of proof that you just need to be open to, the universe talking to you. 

A long-term business colleague who is associated with the network building organization I started 20 years ago has been begging me to reengage with the group. She asked if I would come to the Christmas social. I said I would. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience. Other than a few old time people who I know well, no one...literally no one even acknowledged me, introduced themselves, made any effort to make contact. And honestly, I felt the same. I had not the slightest interest in finding out who they were. I left early because I had a social impact virtual call to some people in Malaysia. In the past, I might have felt annoyed that I wasted my time going to the meeting or that people were so rude. Not yesterday. I felt blessed and grateful. It was a clear message. 

It is time to turn the page and move on.