Sure is gray and chilly out there. We’re stuck under a front that is stationary, unmoving, massive. An omega something or other. Not a good omen for my bike training, but that will need to continue regardless of the weather. J asked me last night what I want to do on Mother’s Day, if I want time alone. I may want to burrow under the covers and not get out of bed until noon, at this rate.

But! Being the Queen of Silver Linings, I do have some good news today. I’m back from the ophthalmologist, Dr D, who has been following my progress back from the medication-induced iritis and subsequent retina swelling, and then dramatically increased pressure in my eyes due to the steroid drops that were treating the condition in the first place.

As of today, my vision is normal. My pressure is normal, after a month with no drops whatsoever. I don’t need to go back for three months.

Which in most ways is good. The waits can be very long at Dr D’s, his staff are by turns friendly and surly, and the radio playing in the waiting room makes the ears bleed. Well, my ears, anyway.

Once you get into an exam room, there is dim lighting, no music, and this is your view:

I have complained in the past to Dr D about the music. He claims they tried classical music, but “nobody liked it.”

Today, Dr D decided he needed to know more about what kind of music I liked. I told him it was complicated and really, please, don’t worry about it anymore! And then he was looking for mp3’s on his phone and started playing a wholly inoffensive (= soporific) guitar thing, which he said had been used as the theme music to a Ken Burns documentary about the National Parks. “Hmmm,” I said, flailing around for something nice to say. “It sounds… Burnsian.” Okay, I guess that didn’t come out very nice.

But the pressure was down! In my eyes! Down to 13. Which is a good measure. And 13 has always been my number – it seems to come up a lot.

I went back out to the crowded waiting room, paid my copay, made an appointment for impossibly far-off early August, and headed back to the subway in the windy rain.

My legacy of the ocular side effects to my cancer meds, side effects which in the trial afflicted a mere 1% of patients? One floater in my left eye. It’s round, shaped like a lentil. It floats. When I want to, I can stare at a white wall and bounce it around as though I were playing Pong. It may be there forever, or at least (as I understand) until I get much older and my eyeballs are less sticky and it falls off.

It is better than a scar, by far. Weirder than a scar, for sure. But me, I’ve never been a textbook case of anything. Why start now?