You must be wondering if I’m ever going to follow up on the post I wrote about glaucoma. I shall do that now.

After the surgery with Dr. Penner I returned to my optometrist to have my eyes tested again. I got new lenses for my glasses with a new prescription but there was no help for my double vision. I went back to the optometrist and she checked my eyes again and said I needed to go to an ophthalmologist that deals specifically with double vision.

So I did.  Dr. Wong took out her suitcase of prism lenses and we tried them all, and I was still seeing double vision.However, she gave me a different prescription and I had new lenses put in my frames once again.  With these new lenses, I could not read medium small print so I was going back again to see my optometrist. However, she is not practicing at the location any longer.

I was particularly lucky that my farmer optometrist who has been away having a child was now back in the office and I could see her once more.

Dr. Halverson is exceptionally thorough. After she had checked my eyesight and could find nothing amiss on the prescription in my current lenses, she did some searching in my eyes with different head movements.

She explained to me that in each eye you have three sets of muscle. Two at the bottom of your eye, two at the middle and two at the top. She said that the upper left muscle in my left eye is the one that is not working properly connecting with my brain and it is what is CAUSING THE DOUBLE VISION.

NOW I KNOW.

Dr. Halverson also said there has been surgeries done to correct this, but they success rate is still quite low and she would not suggest my having this done. I can’t imagine there’s some kind of exercise I could do to correct this problem.

The double vision isn’t constant and sometimes doesn’t happen until late in the evening when my eye is probably tired.  It is weird, however, that I can see with or without classes on, far in the distance with no double vision.

I can see clearly up close as on my iPad, but have double  vision on the TV from 12 feet.  Most commercials have no double vision and some sports have and some others don’t. The CFL games have not had double division but the NFL games do have double vision.  The Los Angeles Dodgers home games have no double vision, but the World Series games have.

The trabeculectomy surgeries in both eyes has kept the pressure down in my eyes at 11 and 12.  I am not taking any drops so this is good. Hopefully, the glaucoma doesn’t progress any further.

I can still manage on my own thanks to grocery, meal delivery and some of my own cooking I’m doing OK.

My granddaughter came over and made buns with me before Thanksgiving. We had fun doing this. We took a buns to the Thanksgiving dinner at our friends home.   Everyone loved the buns and my granddaughter was tickled pink for the compliments.

TTYL

The holiday has existed in Canada since at least 1845, originally on Queen Victoria’s Birthday, May 24.

The holiday is colloquially known in parts of Canada as “May Two-Four”, a double entendre that refers both to the date around which the holiday falls (May 24) and the Canadian slang for a case of twenty-four beers (a “two-four”), a drink popular during the long weekend.{

Hanley, Saskatchewan, had a celebration on Victoria Day as far back as 1905? The reason I know that is because when my mom‘s family came to Saskatchewan there was a celebration in Hanley at that time. There were flags and banners and a merry-go-round. Baseball and foot races.

I only remember it as being a “Sport’s Day” and my Brother Jim would go and pitch for the Strongfield baseball team. I don’t believe I ever went to Hanley, but I can remember it was either really cold or really hot. Jim would come home with such a sunburn when it was the hot sunny day.

I think my dad really wanted to have a son that was a good baseball player because he had played baseball back in Minnesota. I think by the time Jim was old enough to play all my dad probably wasn’t that keen about baseball by that time. How do I know?

I know that Jim tried very hard to be really good pitcher and he probably could’ve become one if he had had any coaching outside our family. All I know is I wasn’t very good at catching the fastball that came out of his hand!

I have no pictures from Hanley celebrations but I have one from Notre Dame at Wilcox.

I hope that summer is on its way!

You should write your life story.

I think it is important and forgive me if I said this before! Every time I’m having a card game with a few people or just coffee, I ask them if they have written their life story or if they have any plans to do it! I explained to them that it’s not that difficult even if you just write it on line paper. If you have access to word document on your computer or tablet you can write it there. Printed out or if it is just on lined paper, you can go to Staples and have it coil bound. BIngo , you have a record of your life for your children or grandchildren to read.

One day when I was waiting at the lab to have blood work done, I was in conversation with a gentleman in the next seat. He said that his Mother was still living on her own and very healthy at 86 years of age and I thought this is a really good time yo tell him to sit down with her and explain how important it is to him if she would write her life story. And I told him just that. He told me that his mom was 13 years old and his dad was 14 years old when they came to Canada from Germany. They had survived WW2 in Germany and met and married after coming to Canada. There must be interesting stories of each parent.

It reminds me of the story of Edith Kesmarky. She was Doc’s (my husband) boss at SGI for many years. She and husband and children escaped from a train that was taking them to a concentration camp. The oldest daughter needed to go to the washroom and all four of them went from the washroom off the train on the other side. It was dark and they trudged through the muddy fields for four hours not knowing where they were going. It turned out when it was daylight that they were safe in West Germany. Edith’s husband was an Engineer and was offered a job with Sask Power when they finally arrived in Canada. I remember her saying they had only $1.87 to their name when they got to Regina.
One friend of my youngest daughter told me how happy she is that I write about my life in my blog. She was at her grandmother’s funeral and after listing to family members recalled many things her Gramma had done. She had never heard any of this before. She wished her Gramma had written about her life.

You can buy inexpensive lined paper to write on. Once you have written your life story, you can take it, as I said above, to Staples to make copies for family members. You can get it coil bound for under $10.00.

Start writing today!

This is World Glaucoma Day. Yes, today, March 12, 2026, is World Glaucoma Day. It is part of World Glaucoma Week (March 8–14, 2026), which focuses on raising awareness about the “silent thief of sight”. The day emphasizes the importance of regular eye check-ups to prevent blindness.

I want to share my experiences with Glaucoma.

My Glaucoma started in 2003

Dr. Monica Jensen referred me to Dr. Kirker to see if I had signs of glaucoma.

Dr. Kirker was full of fun. He always called me, Maureen O’Hara, and he would laugh. He did confirm that I had the start of glaucoma and I began taking eye drops to stop the progress by reducing the eye pressure.

Dr. Kirker retired and I started seeing Dr Douglas and he retired. I was referred to Dr. Gooi and now I see Dr. Penner.

In the past few years, I tried many different eye drops and had major side effects. The last prescription was Monoprost.

Dr. Penner explained to me that the drops were not keeping my glaucoma at bay and that surgery was the only option. I was booked January 5, 2026 for surgery on my right eye and February 17 for my left eye.

This surgery is called Trabeculectomy and they make a flap called a bleb in the white of your eye. My first surgery was on the outer side of the white of my eyeball of my right eye. The 2nd surgery was to the right of the eyeball of my left eye.

The surgery on my right eye kept the pressure down however it caused my eye to be blurry. 4-6 weeks was generally the timeframe for the blurriness to stop. However, after eight weeks, there was still a bit of blurriness in that eye.

The surgery for February 17 was postponed to March 4 when my left eye surgery was done.

When I wake up in the morning, there is no blurriness in either eye, however, I do believe the eye drops cause some cloudiness but it is mild. Right now I am using four different drops; prednisone, bepreve, nirvanac-sandbox-moxifloxacin. These drops are to heal my eye.

For whatever reason my right eye was blurry for seven weeks. With my left eye right from after the surgery I had very little blurriness.

I can see quite clearly with my latest
prescription classes from last summer. However, they up close reading portion of my glasses is not accurate. Dr. Pender said that it takes a good month for the eye to heal totally and I will be able to get new prescription glasses.

Hopefully my eyes will be healed from the surgery soon and I will be seeing OK!