Paddling Through the Storms (eBook)

4
 
The First Storm

"Fear's strength is our weakness."

- Christi Kasha

It was the early part of December 1993 when the storm clouds started rolling in. I was enjoying life as much as any twenty-six-year-old could and having so much fun that I scarcely noticed the threatening elements. Barely out of our newlywed stage, Terry and I were excited about getting to spend a lot more time together during the rest of the year than we normally did. He wasn't scheduled for any out-of-town jobs and business at my mom and stepdad's sign manufacturing and installation company, where I worked in sales, was always slow in December. Since everyone lived in the metropolitan Atlanta area, we had enjoyed spending Thanksgiving with all of our family members. Now we were looking forward to kicking off the Christmas season with Terry's company's party. I had fun getting all dolled up in a semi-formal dress, Terry looked so handsome in his suit, and I couldn't wait to get to dance with him. The food and drinks would be plentiful, his co-workers were fun to hang out with, and the karaoke machine that had been brought in promised a lot of laughter for the evening. With the help of a few alcoholic beverages, I didn't hesitate to join some of the other wives in what was sure to be an award-winning rendition of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. We were already halfway through the first verse before I looked at the monitor in front of us. I realized that it was a good thing we had selected a song that I knew by heart because I couldn't read the words on the screen. I remember thinking, "I haven't had that much to drink. They should have a bigger monitor," as I made a mental note to get a better position directly in front next time. However, as my group was surprisingly not asked to give an encore performance, I thought nothing else about it and continued to enjoy the night.

It was several weeks later when I was lying in bed one night and looked at the alarm clock on the entertainment center against the opposite wall. It was intentionally placed on the other side of the room as a way to force me to get out of bed when it went off. Otherwise, the talent that I had developed for turning the alarm off, rolling over, and going back to sleep would be put into practice. But now its location was posing another challenge. I was shocked and confused to discover that I couldn't read the time it displayed. Blinking hard several times and then squinting did no good, I still couldn't read the lighted red numbers. I could see them, I just couldn't make out what they said. Finally, I resorted to crawling out from under the covers and down to the foot of the bed where I was half a room closer and could see the time.

As I lay back down and snuggled under the covers, the memory of the difficulty reading the karaoke words came to mind and I was more aggravated than worried. "Dang! I guess my near-sightedness has gotten worse," I complained silently. My previously diagnosed condition was so mild that I seldom used the glasses that I had.

They spent much more time in a drawer at home than on me or even in my purse. Still, no one wants to think that his or her vision has deteriorated, even a little. "Oh, well. I need to go to the eye doctor for a checkup anyway. It's been forever." I put it on my mental to-do list, but didn't bother to mention the incidents to anyone as they didn't seem to be worth bringing up. It was the Christmas season and making an appointment kept moving farther and farther down the list. 

The warm breezes of spring were in the air by the time I decided to deal with the reality that something was going on with my eyesight.  It had been easy to ignore the trouble that I was having and to put off getting it checked out because whatever the problem was, it wasn't keeping me from actually being able to see things. It just made certain things blurry or hard to read, causing me only momentary trouble and inconveniences. But deep down I was beginning to suspect that something more significant that near-sightedness was wrong, and that's when fear and uncertainty took the place of busyness in keeping me from taking action. I didn't know what was wrong and wasn't sure if I wanted to find out. I was more scared of the diagnosis than I was of the struggles I was having. Fear can cause us to make decisions that aren't just illogical, but can be just plain dumb. I will always wonder how different the ending of this story might be if I had taken some sort of action, any action, immediately.

Instead, I let the weeks slide by, even though it was becoming harder and harder to brush off the difficulties that would pop up during the course of the day. I remember sitting at traffic lights and having a hard time seeing the turn arrows light up in their permission-giving green. Ordering what I knew was a good old stand-by at restaurants got me around having to struggle to read the menus. It also kept me from having to gauge if things were worse. Sometimes we try the hardest to hide the truth from ourselves. Then, if we're lucky, something happens that forces us to look at ourselves and face what is really going on.

One morning I was in the bathroom putting on my makeup while getting ready for work. To put my eye makeup on, I leaned so far over the counter that my breath fogged up the mirror in front of me. I felt the lump rise out of my tightened stomach and jump up into my throat as I realized that even at that distance, I couldn't see my eye clearly enough to apply the eyeliner that I was holding in my shaking hand. I took a deep breath, leaned back over, and ignored the look of worry on my face that was so obvious even I had no trouble seeing it. Even with this realization, I wasn't ready to give in just yet, so relying on my years of makeup applications and by glancing sideways, which allowed my peripheral vision to bring about some clarity, I finished my cosmetic routine to what I hoped was acceptable and wouldn't draw suspicion, and I left for work.

It's funny how when we reach a certain point, a minuscule amount of time can be all we need to go from inaction and indecisiveness to making significant adjustments and big decisions. By the time that I had driven the forty-five minutes to the other side of town where my office was, I had decided that it was time to do something; it was way past time, but better late than never. I recognized that I was scared and certainly wasn't feeling very courageous, so I knew that I needed to take some kind of action quickly, before I gave myself a reason to back out. I didn't have a regular eye doctor, but I remembered seeing a sign for one in a shopping center about a mile away from my office. Instead of turning right at the traffic light to go to work, I forced myself to continue straight ahead for a couple hundred feet and then to turn left into the center’s parking lot. I copied the number off of the door, drove directly to my office, parked, walked purposefully to my desk where I picked up the phone and finally made the long overdue appointment. They were able to see me the next day. My method of coping was refusing to think about the appointment until that time came and I was forced to do so. "After all, it's just an eye exam," I told myself.

The next day and the appointment came all too soon. The feeling in my stomach as I parked the car and walked in by myself is one that I have become way too familiar with in the years since. The apprehension, the fear, the concern were unnecessary, I told myself. And yet, I used those emotions to make this seem like an adventure of some sort, a challenge to overcome. "You can do this! " I coached myself.

I had told no one anything about this, not Terry, not my mother whom I saw every day at work, not my brothers whom I would trust with my life, no one. Perhaps keeping it to myself made it seem less real, and telling someone that I was worried there might be a problem was admitting that there might be a problem. Also, the secrecy gave me permission to handle it my way and to react however I wanted, without having to worry about someone else. At that moment, I needed to do what made it the easiest for me to cope, and privacy won out over support. That would come later, when it was really needed.

I made it inside and, in more ways than one, there was no turning back. After filling out the normal forms, I was taken to the exam room to meet with the optometrist. Though his name escapes me, I remember him as being extremely nice and the calming effect it had on me. The routine part of the exam didn’t take long as we never made it past the first letter on the eye chart. No matter which eye I used or how many different lenses the doctor had me look through, I could not make out the large "E" at the top of the chart's triangle.

For someone who had always had close to 20/20 vision, this experience was beyond shocking, it was humiliating. I felt like I was doing something wrong. I felt like an idiot! Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I had waited so long before doing anything. Besides just wanting to ignore the problem, I didn't want to feel as though I was to blame in some way. It's funny how all too often, even when circumstances are out of our control, we get so busy blaming ourselves that we don't do the things that we do have control over. How much better would the decisions that we make for our lives be if we would just give ourselves a break once in awhile?

The doctor gave up and started a visual exam of my eyes by shining his penlight into one eye and then the other, again and again, at times pulling...