Accio... erm... ablatio retinae!

It started with a little 'dead spot' in my right eye, big enough to make it hard for me to see my own nose. I thought I could deal with that, but the day after, the little spot grew bigger and bigger, until it consumed almost half of my field of vision. I had already decided to contact my family doctor the next day, when my brother in law, a retired doctor himself, urged me to contact the Emergency Ward immediately, as I might have been hit by something nasty.

Things did not look that bad, as the emergency doctor tentatively concluded the symptoms were caused by a minor bleeding in the eye, causing a little cloud of blood in the jelly vitreous humor of the eye to obscure my nose and more. This was going to disappear all by itself, like all bruises do, but he told me to contact my own doctor the day after, just to be sure. This was where things started to derail.

My family doctor hides behind a phone wall to guard himself from Hypochondriacs In All Sizes And Flavors, but is professional enough to provide a phone number for Real Emergencies. You know, anything on the brink of life and death. Modest as ever, I had categorized myself as HIASAF, so I decided to try again next next day to get an appointment. All in all, the blind spot looked like it had started to shrink, the edges were getting transparent and its color had changed from deep red through purple through blue though green, the way all bruises do.

I had more or less expected my doctor to tell me to call back if I could not see my nose in a week or so, but he wanted to see me there and then. Without further ado, he declared me a medical emergency, contacted an eye doctor in a hospital half an hour away, and told me to report there that same morning.

My other brother-in-law was kind enough to drive me there, and we found the hospital was currently in a state of decay. Because of the Corona state of affairs, it had been rearranged  to keep apart patients as much as possible, which worked like a charm, but it made it next to impossible for me to try and find the eye doctor: we had to try a good four desks.

It went fast from there. The eye doctor needed no more than a few minutes to conclude this was no bleeding. It was a full blown case of my retina having come loose, or 'ablatio retinae' for friends.  In my case, the ceiling of my eye had come down and was now obscuring my view on my nose and everything else. In order to keep things from getting worse, I had to undergo surgery as soon as possible, that is the same day.

I had hoped to return home for a moment to inform the rest of the family, but the highway was thoroughly jammed in a car accident, so after two hours we returned to the hospital unsuccessfully, and I was prepared for surgery.

Preparations opened with a sticker on my right cheek, that is the left one for you, with an arrow pointing to my right eye: this one, please. Over the course of the afternoon they asked me repeatedly for my name, birth date and eye, to make sure they were not going to kill anyone innocent.

My biggest worry for surgery was anything needle. My eye was to be anesthetized by injection (Needle 1) so nasty that I myself had to be anesthetized myself lightly through a roesje, i.e. a light intravenous sedation (Needle 2) which does not really put you asleep. I was given no less than 3 hours to worry about the two, and every now and then a nurse put some drops of something iodine into my right eye, which bites so badly the iodine is precluded by drops that numb the eye.

Needle 1 was camouflaged as much as possible with a ointment to numb the skin, which was applied to both hands, as they had not decided yet where to infuse me. Anyways, it took away most of the sting. I did not really notice the roesje, did not black out, and while I discussed this with the nurse, she smilingly told me that Needle 2 had already been applied. Looks like the anesthetist there is a black-belt Needle Ninja!

With all needles over, I was finally able to relax, and the operation was over in half an hour. An air bubble was inserted in my eye to keep the retina in position, and I was given instruction to sleep on my back to make the bubble do its work. A quick check up the day after confirmed that all is looking good, so far.

For the next weeks I need to apply eye drops thrice a day, sleep on my left side, wear an eye cap during the night and be really careful with my right eye. For you, things may look horrible, as my eye looks like it was butchered, and it was. For me, things look good, and I hope vision in my right eye will return when the air bubble dissolves in the next week. I'll keep you updated.

Mighty oaks

When I pruned some bushes in my mother's garden last year, I realized I knew next to nothing about how green things grow. The victims survived, though, and I managed to do a little better this year.

To further my knowledge in this area, I decided to pick up bonsai, starting from ground zero. So, last September, I gathered thirty-ish acorns to have them germinate. I put some in a bag with moist soil, some went directly in the garden, some in little plastic jars in the shed, and some in jars on the flat kitchen roof.

Some acorns in the bag germinated within weeks, developed centimeters of root , so I planted these in plastic jars, and kept them in the shed. The kitchen roof experiment was abandoned early, as the acorns planted there were stolen by birds, I suspect magpies (if they are reading this: I hope the acorns will rot in your belly).

Not much happened during winter. Every now and then I checked the plastic bag, and planted the acorns that had germinated. As soon as the temperatures started to rise above 15℃, the little jars exploded, and this week I moved the most promising candidates outside, to give them room to develop.

The Dutch have a saying "Boompje groot, plantertje dood", which implies I will probably not live to see these little oaks reaching maturity. However, I might see these growing to bonsaiable proportions in the next fifteen years or so. To be ready when the time is ripe, I will buy some cheap practice material, like Juniperus, from a nursery, to find out how not to approach this.

Looks like I am not the first one to travel the road from acorn to oak. George Bernard Shaw did this before me, and he expressed his experience better than I can:

I took an acorn and put it in a pot.
I then covered it with earth, not a lot.
Great pleasure was mine watching it grow.
The first budding green came ever so slow.
I watered my plant twice a week
I knew I would transplant it down by the creek.
One day it will be a giant oak,
To shield me from the sun a sheltering cloak.
Lovers will carve their initials in the bark,
An arrow through a heart they will leave their mark.
It will shelter those caught in a fine summers rain,
Under its leafy bows joy will be again.
Creatures of the wilds will claim it for their own,
Squirrels will reside here in their own home.
Birds will build nests and raise their young,
They will sing melodies a chorus well sung.
Under it’s branches grass will grow,
Here and there a wild flower it’s head will show.
My oak tree for hundreds of years will live.
Perhaps the most important thing I had to give.