Ah I struggled to get into it tbh.
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This lad.
It’s only for a few days but he’s moping around like a lost soul since he got it on. Take it off for him to eat and he won’t touch his food.
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Poor fella.
When I got my two little ones spayed they were given them as well. Not a hope would they wear them. The screams out of them when I even tried to put them on. So I just took it off and kept an eye on them. They are small enough so I’d say they had about 2 stitches each.
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Great that there’s a lull here. I do hope you’re alright though @Cheasty @Batigol and all the rest of ya’s.
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I’m now 8 months and 8 days after surgery to fix a detached retina.
Four days ago I attended an appointment with a retinal surgeon for a second opinion. Inexplicably, at one point I was handed my file by a nurse and told to go to a waiting room, and of course I had a look through the file and photographed what I could, including the referral letter the surgeon who did the operation sent to the second opinion.
“Unfortunately the patient has become fixated on this issue” was the pertinent line. Well, duh, of course I’m fixated on the issue, because I have constant double vision and my life that I loved and my ability to live any sort of a fulfilling life has to all intents and purposes ended. When you dread being in your own head and dread seeing out of your own eyes your life has essentially ended. It’s like your experiencing the aftermath of your own death, but the now meaningless world is still carrying on around you and you still have to go and die, or else live a miserable life full of fear which you don’t want to live, which is very scary.
At the appointment I felt I wasn’t taken seriously and felt I was essentially put on trial as to why I was even there. I feel that my case was discussed based on six month old information, maybe that’s untrue and maybe that’s unfair but that’s how it felt to me. I feel like nobody I go to is willing or able to help me medically in the way that I need to be helped. I feel like I was told I was being ungrateful. But I don’t feel I have anything to be grateful for. I cannot look at the moon and I cannot experience the simple joys like enjoying a walk and looking at nature that make life worth living.
An epiretinal membrane is a form of scar tissue that forms on the retina. It can happen to anybody, to those who have had surgery or to those who have not had surgery, it can form as a result of ageing. An epiretinal membrane can distort the surface of the retina, it can wrinkle it, or distort the retinal architecture. The retina is like the film in a camera. If it’s wrinkled, the picture will probably be distorted. Distorted vision in non-retinal detachment patients is generally considered to be possible grounds to have an epiretinal membrane removed via surgery. But mine is not considered grounds for surgery. Even though there’s a possibility it’s contributing to my visual distortion and/or double vision. I am told “no, we’re not going near that". I’m told, “your problem is depression”. Yes, I’m depressed because of my eyesight which makes it impossible for me to feel in any way well in myself. So I’m pissed off, pissed off as fuck, because the vision I have from my left eye is destroying my life and it seems to me either nobody will do anything about it or can do anything about it. So that fucking sucks.
I have no optimism that anything will be able to be done about my double vision. I have an appointment about this next week, but I had an appointment a few weeks back about it too at the School of Optometry in Grangegorman and while they were very nice and very professional they couldn’t do anything for me. My left eye vision is distorted, but also tilted or slanted. So, as far as I can see, prisms don’t work and if prisms don’t work you’re basically fucked. People keep preaching time but you feel like you’re wandering in an endless dark hoping for a miracle and that’s a horrible feeling.
I was told the other day, try some eye exercises. Oh man, if only it were that simple. I just want to escape out of my body. My operated eye is sore too. I’m now getting styes or meibomian cysts I think they’re called, probably because I’m vaping all the time – I have to vape even though I shouldn’t because without it I’d go completely round the bend. These styes or meiibomian cysts are painful. My eyes are a basket case. My eye is very sore right now.
After scarcely being out at all over the previous eight months, I’ve been in pubs drinking on four occasions in the last nine days, one of them last night. On one level this is good, because I’m out talking to people, and when I talk to people I’m able to talk very fluently and cogently, but on another level it’s bad, because when I wake up the next morning, I feel like utter shit and my daily feeling of “what’s the fucking point of my life any more” is compounded by the after-effects of alcohol and my brief foray into old normality is swiftly taken away again and then some.
I have bought tickets for the Munster hurling final and I’m going to go. I was bored on the train up to Dublin on Thursday, and I’m pissed off I didn’t attend last year’s Munster hurling final, so I decided, fuck it. I will be on the Clare End terrace and inside I will be feeling very agoraphobic in an environment where I would have previously felt utterly alive.
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A great idea to make for the Munster Final. Hope the trip goes really well. Try to catch a pint in Charlie Malone’s, if you have the time. You would enjoy the spot. There was a recent discussion on here of the best Limerick pubs.
Would go there myself next weekend, in fact, bar the not inconsiderable matter of the Leinster Final.
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I always find going to the pub quite useful, as it forces you to be sociable, especially if you’ve a mate to go with. I’m always reticent about advising it though, as alcohol is not especially good for depression.
Enjoy the match mate. Get stuck in. Having an interest in something is a sign that there’s still some fire burning inside ya
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I have interest in things. Everything still means something huge to me, but at the same time everything has ceased to have any meaning. Everything feels rotten and nothing gives any real comfort at all. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that. I just feel utterly mutilated physically and mentally. It feels like what I imagine it must feel like to be raped or abused. I’ve been thinking about suicide again this evening. The affliction is relentless and dystopian and I’ve been told the destruction of my life amounts to “success”. It’s an insult. Retinal surgeons as far as I can see measure success according to their own abstract criteria in which the functional vision and real life and real feelings and devastation of the patient are not even a thing. This isn’t woodwork class and they behave like it is.
Doctors can be a bit like that with depression I’ve found, but I suppose they’d go mental if they got too invested in people.
I’ve always found I lose interest in things when I’m down. In 2019, Limerick played Tipp in the Munster Final, something I’d usually be mad into, didn’t interest me at all. The same day I only went in to keep up appearances.
I know it doesn’t feel like it, but the fact that that you still have interest in stuff is a huge thing.
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Since the World Cup which kept me alive for a month I’ve lost a lot of interest in the soccer and particularly the upper end of the Premier League to be honest. Liverpool haven’t been doing great which doesn’t help but the whole club scene feels fairly stale and rotten. I would have been a big listener to that Second Captains podcast but I’ve tailed off big time in the last three months or so. I watched about five minutes of the first game between Man City and Real Madrid and didn’t watch a second of the second leg, never even saw the goals.
I used to watch Channel 4 News every evening and I’ve scarcely watched it at all since September.
It’s mainly the GAA that’s keeping me a bit interested in life at the moment and that’s mostly the hurling given the football has been scrap up to now.
Ashes starting in just over a week mate.
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Don’t worry about the rest of it. Focus on the Munster final. It will be a cracker
Do you take creatine?
No.
Why so?
You should bro.
Great for energy, recovery but it’s also great for brain health.
It’s a super supplement that was drastically misunderstood previously but the older you get it’s one supplement we should all be taking.
More and more tests being carried out on the benefits to mental health and depression.
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Take monohydrate version.
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Makes me thirsty as fuck
A small price to pay.
The mono version is the way to go.
5gs a day. No need to load or any of that nonsense.
Great for mood, energy, recovery after exercise, cognitive function, and combats inflammation…
Everyone should be taking it, not just gym bros.
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I’ve heard that alright. I must get on it.