Rough Draft » Health

Walk a Mile Through My Eyes

Dale Challener Roe — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:18:28 +0000

They say you shouldn’t judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. These days I think seeing the world through someone’s eye is probably more telling. These are how I’ve been seeing the word for a while now.

A couple of weeks ago I got a new pair of glasses—my first new pair in seven years. Admittedly seven years is a long time to wear the same pair of glasses—a point my optometrist made rather vehemently. I really couldn’t afford new glasses, but while my glasses are not the cause of the headaches I’ve been having, they’re certainly not helping. My prescription hadn’t changed much, but the glasses themselves weren’t in very good shape. The most obvious flaw was the crack in the left lens.

I’m not really sure how or when the crack happened. You see my eyes are bad enough that when I take the glasses off, I can’t see well enough to see the crack, and when they’re on they’re just a little too close to my eyes to really see then lenses—which is, I guess, the point. But if course the crack wasn’t the whole problem. Their was also a veneer of filth that just wouldn’t come off anymore, no matter how much I cleaned them.

And the lenses were pitted, and the scratch coating had worn off unevenly, giving the glasses a mottled, sometimes reflective surface that played havoc with the light.

I guess it’s the cure of buying really good, flexible, indestructible frames, is that I can get away with keeping glasses for a very long time. But in the future I think I’ll try to keep the period between new glasses a little shorter than that of a bankruptcy.

I’ll let you know if it helps with the headaches.

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Lost in Time

Dale Challener Roe — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:55:01 +0000

I feel lost.

Like it or not, we’re creatures of habit. The details day-to-day details may change a bit, but in general our days, weeks, months and years follow a loose pattern. Upsetting this pattern can make us feel lost in our own lives.

Since Thursday night my life has been off kilter. Friday, Saturday & Sunday were lost to a combination of violent headaches and the haze of medication. Monday I took off work to recover from the hangover of the weekend. Then today we had an unexpected snow day.

I know for those of you who live with snow on a regular basis, 6 inches of fluff is no big deal, but for a city with only and handful of plows, and no snow tires anywhere, it doesn’t take much to shut a city down for a day.

All of this has amounted to 5 days—so far—completely out of my routine.

And it’s got me feeling a bit…off.

Can't Enjoy the Cold Weather

Dale Challener Roe — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:04:09 +0000

Tonight promises to be the coldest night of the season so far—10°, and 0° with the wind chill. That may not seem like much to you northerners, but it’s fairly cold for Raleigh.

I love the cold weather. I grew up in Miami, where winter consisted of one cold night, where everyone broke out the sweaters and parkas they’d been given as gifts. Then by noon the next day it was back to 70°. So once I left Miami, I was happy to have actual seasons.

So normally the coming sub-freezing weekend would have me jazzed. But right now I’m a prisoner in my own skin. Two days ago I started a cycle of cluster headaches. And for anywhere from a few days to a couple of months I can expect a series of crippling headaches each day.

Even if we get snow Sunday night, as they’re predicting, I won’t get to enjoy it.