chloramphenicol & dexamethasone drop by drop

DROP BY DROP, into my recovering eye, post cataract surgery. The 'new' eye sees detail at distance, transmitting a cooler bluer world to me full of sharp clarity…  but disputing with my other eye, still back in my long accustomed short-sightedness. Boxing day and just over a week since I underwent the procedure. Three weeks more of those drops, the second one at least, four times a day… The gritty feeling is no longer an issue…

This re-incarnation cannot replicate the super close up facility I have so long had to rely on — and come to value. For now, one eyed operation is what I must work with, until my left eye goes through the second stage of what is after all a bilateral procedure. For the time being I must manage a twisted regime. Left sided: super close up, or with appropriate spectacle lens, the middle distance via the unaltered eye. The treated, right sided eye — long distance, and the more further extension of middle distance [middle distance is a little less than arm's length]: but nothing close up — unless assisted by borrowed reading glasses, which of course, conflict the untreated left. 

It is called disparity. I should think it to be the most awkward aspect of getting your eyes fixed in this manner. 

Cataract surgery for me is not principally about addressing the obstruction of my vision by a clouding of my eyes' lenses, although that too was coming to pass — but to physically respond to increasing myopia, which was reaching the end of what can reasonably be addressed via the prescription of a glass lens. 

I have waited a long time for the 'phacoemulsification of cataract and insertion of intraocularlens' (it was/is not without risk, moderate in my case, due to the shape of my eyeballs, likened to the characteristic shape of bananas by one inspecting medic, I kid you not!)…

The truth is, right now, the reconditioned eye function is conditioned, constrained, until both eyes have approximately the same acuity  status. Then we shall see. Thereafter, after further testing and re-assessment by an ophthalmologist, I am also anticipating the recovery of my ability to discern the middle distances, by recourse to my next spectacles prescription. 

Will there be situations where I can, for the first time ever, go unaided by spectacles? I shall soon find out I hope. 

I fear I shall miss, badly at first, the super close up aspect of having been so myopic. The principle advantage: to be able to inspect in detail, without lens or magnifier. To read the ever so small print! Gone for good, traded for views of the bright blue uplands! How will I find those splinters and tiny thorns that prick my fingers then? How will I appreciate the scales of butterfly wings, the interior spaces and detail of flowers, the exactitude or otherwise of maps, print and image? 

Well we will see I suppose, or rather, I will. I am sure I may hanker for this lost facility when it is no more… even now, at this midway stage, still possible with the untreated eye, I am soberly brought to the realisation that one can't have it all… if one's eyes are as compromised as mine…

I am no longer a camera. This morning I endeavour to take a picture. Hitherto I've employed the back screen to frame the scene, as an oversized view finder. Well, that won't work with the new eye. My camera's pop up view-finder, deemed an unnecessary addition when the kit was acquired, looks as though it will become an essential attribute in the coming months; thankfully, and for the first time, a digital view-finder working for the (new) me!!

e-greets (updated 2023)

 

It was in 2010 that I decided: enough was enough.

Postage costs going ever upwards, folk I heard nothing of from one year to the next, cards sent and not received, people overlooked, postal deadlines missed, cards destined for landfill, glitter everywhere, none recyclable, or too good to discard so cluttering the place up for weeks or even years,  etc etc.

I came up, quite independently of anyone who had thought of it before, with the Bullsmead e-greet. Unlike other e-greets I have seen since my first 2010 attempts, mine are always tailored to the specific recipient(s) insofar as the greeting carries their name(s). 

Unsurprisingly I received some slightly scornful observations at first: I still get the odd one even now. But I have at least taken the time to design my greeting on a personal basis, with something topical perhaps, certainly something seasonal — with an image derived from my own photographs and design, specifically worked into a customised greeting. So what if it is sent via the Internet? There's nothing to stop folk printing the e-greet out and sticking it on the mantelpiece, after all. Money saved in postage goes to increase the financial support I make to this seasonal good cause or that. The sending of an e-greet has also sometimes stimulated and renewed a contact that might otherwise have been at risk of withering away entirely. I send them out as a family greeting, but neither the son-&-heir or Mrs Melling take any part in originating the yearly offering, other than to draw my attention to weaknesses or errors in the design, layout, recipient and so on. 

So here are the designs from 2010 to the present. I trust the good friends and relations who feature on these examples will excuse the use of their names, but without a personalisation example the illustrations here would not demonstrate quite how they work, or not —that's a matter of opinion, of course. Apsley & Thelma? Never-heard-of-'em. 

For some reason I have no record of the 2015 card (the sixth image down from the top) with its typography, I've just got the image I made. But I'm sure you can envision how it probably looked, on the basis of the other years before and after… approximately at least. No? Oh well, we can't all be typographically adept can we? For my public who might want such detail, the house-style type face for this series is generally Monotype Photina.  

But not always! Can you spot the other faces?