Blurred Vision

This title could so easily refer to many of the proposals being put forward for the NHS, but it's a lot more mundane than that.  I woke early this morning (4.20am) after not having dropped off to sleep until well past 1am.  My eyesight is not what it was in my younger days, although I have always needed very long arms to hold books or to hold a needle and thread because I am exceedingly long-sighted.  This caused problems when I first told my mother that I had problems seeing the pages of a book, because at the age of four it was very difficult for me to explain to the optician what it was I could and couldn't see.  Anyway, by the age of 11 it was obvious what the problem was and I had to start wearing glasses for reading, usually something that happens when you get older.

When I got to the age of about 45 I realized that I was starting to have problems seeing road signs when I was driving, so further checks at the opticians led to me wearing glasses all the time, and varifocals have been my saviours since then.  This morning, however, when I put my glasses on I was still having problems seeing things.  My first thought was that it was just that I was tired and perhaps a bit more sleep would take care of the problem.  Unfortunately sleep wouldn't come and my blurred vision was not getting any better.  In fact, my eyes seemed to be getting worse and seemed to be filling with a sticky substance.  One of the problems of not being able to see without your glasses is being unable to look in the mirror to see what the problem is, and even with my glasses on I didn't seem to be any better off this morning.

Obviously a trip to see my GP was called for and the immediate diagnosis was conjunctivitis.  So I am having to regularly bathe my eyes to remove the muck that is accumulating in them and I have a prescription for some eye drops if they get any worse.  The problem with everything being blurred is that I can't read my course books, nor can I do any knitting.  So I have to hope that there is something worth watching on the television so that I can pass the time away.

(In case you are wondering how I am managing to write this post, I am using speech recognition software, doing a spell check and trusting to luck that everything is okay.)