Day by day, things are starting to get a little easier around here. Dennis's eye is slowly getting better, though he's still having a lot of leakage where he shouldn't be. To help prevent infection, the doctor put a contact on his eye and prescribed him to be on diuretics to help control the leaking. The side-effects of the medicine isn't so fun, but it does seem to be helping.
In the meantime, we have been going back and forth to doctor apts. This means a 40 mile drive each way and we have been there three times now. Today I was actually looking forward to it, because after the first two apts of waiting around for Dennis with the younger two kids, we kind of drove around town, trying to find a kid-friendly place to kill time. There are such places in Bloomington, but you have either have to pay to go in or else it's too far away to drive to. By the time we would get there, we would have to go pick up Dennis. But today I had a plan. I had planned things out with my mom to drop the kids off right after bringing Dennis to his apt and then doing a little last-minute Christmas shopping at the toy store. I was looking forward to it, because this would be the first time that I would be "kid-free" and actually alone in days.
Well, as soon as I pulled out of the bank to get my money, guess who called? It was Dennis, calling only fifteen minutes later that I had dropped him off. Out of all his hour long apts, this one of course, was only 10 minutes.
I have to tell you, I was disappointed. I know that sounds terrible and unloving of me to not jump at the chance for some one-on-one time with Dennis, but like I said, I haven't been *alone* in days. It's either I am with the kids doing something with them, or off to see one of their concerts, or making lunches and breakfasts, or doing laundry or putting eye drops in Dennis's eyes every four hours. Even Dennis has gotten a little "alone time" since I have been dropping him off at the gym to do some light work-outs (doctor approved) to just get out of the house.
Dennis could see that I was pretty disappointed (terribly annoyed, actually), and though I didn't want to make him feel bad for needing to be picked up early, he could see that I again had reached my "breaking point." Out of all the days since his surgery, I have only reached my breaking point about 3 times, which isn't too bad for me. I thought I would "losing it" every day!
So he opted to wait in the car while I did some quick Christmas shopping in the toy store. It wasn't really quite the same, since I felt like I had to hurry with Dennis waiting for me. I had forgotten to leave the car keys and I knew it was getting cold in the car. So I zipped right through all my Christmas shopping and hurried back to Dennis. Not quite what I had in mind.
But the good news is, Dennis got the approval to drive again! This means he is well on his way back to the road of independence, though he will still need to be careful about how much he exerts his eye. Glare still bothers his eye quite a lot, and even though we're never aware of it, the pupil is always adjusting to sunlight from room to room. This is what tends to irritate his eye the most and cause him fatigue.
He's not quite in the clear yet with the eye drainage either. It's still leaking a lot but the doctor is having him come back in a week to remove the contact and see if it's getting any better. Hopefully it is; it would be terrible to come all the way of recovering just to undergo the knife and start all over again.
I'm going to start wrapping the kids Christmas presents today. I am thankful that we've had enough money (just enough) that I've been able to buy the kids Christmas presents. I hope they are happy with what we got them.
As for me, all I want for Christmas is a little peace and quiet, a little normalcy, a little time to lay down and take a nap, or make some Christmas cookies for those who have helped us so much during this time.
And some snow would be nice. I like white Christmases.
Hope you all have a very merry Christmas~
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