Cataract Surgery - Part 3

It's been almost a year since my Cataract Surgery on my left eye (March 15, 2012), and the botched job is finally getting so much worse I need to do something.  Studying my videos from the recent Monroe trial, I was horrified to see my handling getting worse.  I know it's because my depth perception is off, as though I'm blathering drunk or seriously hung over all the time.  I have a hard time distinguishing obstacle distances and all the horizontal bars blend together.  I can't rely on vision to judge the distances.  Sometimes the jumps are farther away than they seem, sometimes closer.  I run in halting fashion like I'm confused, surprised, nearly lost.  No wonder my dogs are slowing down despite them becoming better agility dogs.

Worse handling has resolved me to at last do something about my eyesight.  I haven't wanted to think about it, much less deal with it.  But now I see I must.  I can't go thru life seeing things in a blur, not taking stairs unless I have a rail to hold onto, much less run my dogs with confidence.

Taking action on this fills me with fear.  I have no confidence in doctors.  They deal with your most vital parts, but don't know you from Adam.  They make their money and toss you out to fend for yourself.  The highly respected specialist who did my cataract surgery made me feel like a slab of cow meat.  A few months after the surgery I attempted to write a followup post, but I couldn't finish it.  I've finally posted it today, unedited, unpolished, a stream of conscious rambling account of my surgery and aftermath, entitled Cataract Surgery - Part 2.  The upshot of which is . . . . when I told that doctor something wasn't right, his reaction was "I've done over 30,000 of these operations and I've done my job right.  The tests show you have 20/20 vision in that eye.  I don't know what else you expect me to do." 

I don't either.  But you're the specialist.  Do something.  Show interest in my case.  Find out why my left eye is still swollen, it feels like a pin pricking the inside corner when I look left, like a blast of cold air hitting the surface when I look right, and my eye cries all the time. Plus, I'm still looking through a fog, and little brown squigglies float through the eye. My new eye sees things one size, the old eye sees them smaller. Very disorienting. I can't go back to that same pompous jackass, but I can't go on like this.  So now I have to figure out my next move.  What will it be?  Guess I'll confer with a few different specialists and see what they suggest.  I'll keep you posted.

Upwards and onward!

Handler Fitness and Agility

These past 2 years of competing in agility, hearing my fellow competitors yell "Run, Michele, run", seeing myself wabble thru my runs with baby steps and no accelleration (thank goodness my dogs have a rock solid start line stay so I can lead far far out),  and mostly avoiding front crosses for fear of twisting an ankle, I've been looking for

• a running coach,
• or at least running tips,
• plus a lower body fitness routine to do a few minutes every day, and
• a short handler warm-up routine to do before my runs. 

Nobody has come forward to offer me these so I've sort of picked up tips and made up my own routines -- not optimal since I don't know what I'm doing but surely better than nothing.  In fact, still no agility handler I've met personally seems to think handler fitness training is important.  Some say "running just comes natural", others say I'm taking the fun out, or over-complicating things.

But . . . . . . . it isn't fun to be unsure on my feet, and running DOES NOT COME NATURAL to me.   I swear, either I am missing some muscles, or maybe they have atrophied in 45 years of NEVER having an occasion to run. I didn't run thru my classroom as a teacher.  I don't run in the grocery store, don't run from room to room at my house, don't run to the mailbox, and I don't run behind my broom, mop or push lawn mower.  I certainly don't run at my computer where I spend at least half my time.

Finally, today, I find Daisy Peel's website of Online Classes, one of which is:

FUNCTIONAL FITNESS FOR AGILITY HANDLERS
This 9-week course is designed to give you some guidance with exercises that you can incorporate in to a new or existing physical fitness program to help you move around a course fluidly. We’ll address the areas of core stability, balance, strength, acceleration and deceleration, and sports vision.

Aha!  I'm not crazy.  Handler fitness training is important!  It's not only about training the dog!  And I so love the sound of "moving around a course fluidly", the phrase has just become one of my New Year's Resolutions.

"Move around the course more fluidly."

But what the hell is sports vision?  Do I have it?  Do I need it?  If I google it will I get answers?  That will be subject for another blog post. 

The more I learn, the more I learn that there is always something more to learn.  "Knowing it all" is a goal "that fades forever and forever when I move" (quote from Ulysses).  Thus, another New Years' Resolution this and every year is to

"Set realistic expectations, so high they require reaching, but reachable with consistent effort

and some luck."

As it happens, I have an eye appointment scheduled for this Thursday afternoon for a dilation and vision screening in preparation for possible cataract/lasic surgery.  Because I have floaters and look through a fog in my left eye and my reading glasses are getting stronger and stronger, and the TV looks blurry, and I need a magnifying glass to distinguish between 3 and 8, between 5 and S, and I squint a lot which makes me look angry when I'm not, and stuggling to see makes everything harder to do and gives me vague headaches, so that is already another New Years' Resolution of mine:

"Get my eyes fixed in 2012, before trialing begins."

Upwards and onward!