recuperation – Deborah Makarios

February 17, 2017October 19, 2017

Eyeless Entertainment

As habitual readers of this blog may recall, in October 2015 I decluttered my eyeballs. They have now settled into their new shape, and that shape being not yet perfect, I will shortly be having a touch-up surgery.

Those of you who get squicky about eyes may wish to pull something over yours at this point, before I get into details.
The original surgery was LASIK, where they make a flap on the front of your eyeball and carry on the earthworks underneath, before putting the flap back. For the touch-up, however, I will be having LASEK, where they just start straight in on the front of the eyeball. It’s like the difference between laying a pipe under a road, and resurfacing the road.

On the plus side, LASEK has a much lower chance of causing keratoconus (don’t look) and other unpleasant side effects. On the down side, the healing takes longer. The first three days, I have been told, are pretty unpleasant (whereas with the first surgery, the discomfort was mild and gone in hours) and then it’s a week before they take the bandage-lens off. Most disturbing of all, it could be weeks before my vision returns to normal, which is to say, capable of reading small print.

And as anyone who has known me for any amount of time will know, reading small print is pretty much my way of life. I came, I saw, I read.

The question is, then, what I shall do while my eyes recover. I’ve arranged for my work to carry on in my absence by having other people do the reading for me, but how shall I pass the time myself? Last time I borrowed a bunch of audiobooks, and it did not work out as well as I had hoped.

The thing is, you see, that I am a visual person. Audiobooks do not satisfy the reading urge, somehow, and nor does what I’ve heard stick. Of the various books I listened to, I don’t remember what most were, and of the one I remember most clearly, all I can remember is that the main character exclaims “By Timothy!” a lot, and the big scene at the end takes place in a house by a river. Apparently, if I can’t get my eyes into it, I can’t get my teeth into it either.

So what shall I do? For the initial, “miserable” stage, I am planning to listen to the BBC Pride and Prejudice – I’ve seen it so often I can follow along by ear anyway. Subsequently I’m planning to have a good amount of not-too-intricate knitting on hand – hopefully my sight will soon be up to that amount of detail. Also hopefully the Caped Gooseberry will read to me when he can. (Yes, I know I said I don’t take things in when I only hear them, but his voice is so nice I don’t really care.)

What other non-eye-dependent amusements might I solace my recuperation with? Learning Braille? Taking up scales and sword and going forth to wreak Justice? Ideas?

November 15, 2016

Sick at Home

What do you most like to do when you’re recuperating? And what do you most dislike doing when it’s someone else who’s sick?

Myself, I like to watch the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice while I recover, all bundled up and warm on the couch with a pot of tea to hand. When others are sick, it’s overhearing the movement of mucous that I can’t stand – it just gives me the creeps!

December 13, 2014

Rx for Readers

Are your humours out of balance? You could be cupped, or bled, or purged. You could consider emetics, or even dally with leeches. Or perhaps you could just read a book instead.

Myself, I always go for the book.

I don’t know when I realized that I self-medicate with books. Possibly when I wrote this post, or possibly this one.
Or possibly when I read one of the new editions of P.G. Wodehouse and noted that his works were described as “cheaper than Prozac, and 100 per cent more effective.”

Here are a few of my favourite prescriptions.

Feeling blue? In a brown study? Life just drab and grey? Take a course of P.G. Wodehouse. Read anything he wrote: a novel, a preface, even the account of his experiences being interned by the Nazis. Uniformly hilarious.
Overdoses can cause symptoms similar to intoxication; possible side effects include aching stomach muscles and snorted drinks.

Are you jaded by the harried complexities of urban life, the rush, the pollution, the noise? Try the old classic Heidi, by Johanna Spyri. Warning: may cause uncontrollable urge to move to Switzerland.

Plenty of housework to do, but don’t fancy drudging it? Monica Dickens’ autobiographical caper One Pair of Hands should get you in the mood – or, for a more fictional twist, try the exploits of Lucy Eyelesbarrow in Agatha Christie’s 4:50 from Paddington.

Most of Agatha Christie’s works are ideal for when you are in need of something warm and comforting to curl up in. They’re not mindless junk, but neither are there nasty surprises. (Not unless you read Endless Night.) Plenty of unexpected twists, though – I’ve read them over and over again and I still sometimes miss whodunnit.

Also excellent for the early stages of recuperation are Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver novels. There is no-one I would rather have in my sick-room than this quietly knitting, Tennyson-quoting gentlewoman detective, ahem, private enquiry agent.

Are you oppressed? By life, by work, by circumstance? If, like the man trapped by the date tree which grew under him as he slept, you are unable to alter circumstances to your will; adapt your will to circumstances instead: try being heroically or nobly oppressed, for variety.
Nicholas Nickleby (by Monica’s great-granddaddy Charles) would be delighted to be of assistance; or Part One of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women may serve the turn instead.

Like Hamlet, do you find life “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable”? Try Terry Pratchett for some “interesting times.”

Does time weigh heavily on your hands? Do the days bore you by their prosaic banality? The ideal solution is J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic, The Lord of the Rings – the ultimate reason to “not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel,” as Miss Prism warns her charge.

What home remedies do you have on your bookshelf? I’d love to hear!