I've been going back and forth on if I should even do this but I've settled on the fact that I’d rather just tell people once, in depth, so I don't have to keep repeating myself. Also, it saves me from keeping people in the dark and having a situation where I've told some people but not others. This way I can tell everyone that I want to know in a way that's easiest for me.
For those that don't know, I was born with an eye disease that basically causes my retina's to degrade over time. Over time this disease could, and most probably will, cause a certain amount of blindness. When or how much is not certain and no doctor has been able to tell me. My vision is terrible in both eyes but my right eye is significantly worse than my left.
Recently things have gotten worse. Due to my condition, the “tears” in my retina have begun to swell and it's causing pressure inside my eye resulting in decreased vision. I'm facing surgery on both eyes with 50/50 odds that it will work. The plus sides to this surgery are increased visual fidelity in both eyes, the down sides are obviously decreased visual fidelity (or … scary word... blindness) along with the small risk of infection, bleeding and retinal detachment during the surgery. I don't have a set date for this surgery but at the moment it's looking like late January to early February.
In the mean time I've been given some pretty stiff medication to try which may or may not help. The medical data for a condition like mine (for both medication and surgical procedures) is limited because there just aren't very many cases like mine. This medication has some pretty harsh side effects which include nausea, numbness in fingers and toes and it can cause me to suffer from a potassium deficiency.
So those are the facts. If around the holidays (this is mainly applies to family members I guess) I’m not around or I’m not able to be myself you know why. Keeping a positive outlook is what most people say to me and I am trying but it gets increasingly more difficult when things just get this... scary. I'm sorry some of you found out about this before I could get round to tell you. It wasn't that I didn't want to tell you guys, I just didn't know how to do it easily. It's not exactly Christmas conversation haha.
To lighten things up a little here's a riddle:
What word is shorter when you add two letters to it?