I'm Back!

After a two month hiatus, I'm back to blogging. For all of you who have sent e-mails wishing me well, let me say a hearty Thank You! I appreciate your concern.

My break from blogging started one evening, about two months ago, as I was cleaning the swimming pool. As I glanced into the water, it suddenly looked like a thousand gnats were swimming in the water. Obviously, gnats don't live in water. I looked away from the water and discovered that the "gnats" were still there. Within a few more seconds, the swarm of gnats had expanded to fill the entire field of vision in my left eye, only now there weren't a thousand gnats - now there were THOUSANDS OF GNATS. I was puzzled as to what could cause such a malady, so I decided to make my way back to the house. Within a very short period of time, things got much worse and there was a sudden influx of thick black liquid swirling around in my left eye. To top it all off, there were sudden flashes of light that looked like little lightning bolts. At that point, I decided that a trip to the emergency room was in order. That is how my adventure began.

After sitting for several hours in the emergency room, it was decided that I probably had a torn retina. Being a Saturday night, there was no opthamologist on duty, but the ER physician called one that was on-call and he scheduled an appointment to meet me at his office the next afternoon. After a detailed exam, the opthamologist determined that I had a retina that was torn in two places and that I had experienced a hemmorage as the retina tore (that was the thick black liquid floating around in my eye).

I felt sorry for the opthamologist who was wasting his Sunday afternoon to work on my eye (although I appreciated his sacrifice). It reminded me of the occassional times that I have had to fix some tenant problem on a weekend. As it turned out, about 2 1/2 hours of his Sunday afternoon would be spent examining my eye and then performing emergency laser surgery to "tack up" my retina - enough to get me through until the next day at which time I would see a retinal specialist. As I understand it, the surgery basically consists of using a laser to burn the retina, causing it to form scar tissue and thereby welding it to the rods and cones at the back of the eye. This prevents the vitreous humor, which is the liquid in the eye, from leaking behind the retina and causing a retinal detachment, which is a very serious problem that can cause blindness.

The following day, I met with the retinal specialist and had more surgery. While the first surgery on Sunday was relatively painless, the surgery on Monday was excruciating! I think the issue was that Monday's surgery included re-burning the previous day's burns to my retina and let me tell you - IT HURT! Within a few minutes of the surgery being completed, the pain was nearly unbearable. I took everything I could think of to lessen the pain and put an ice pack on my eye for a couple of hours. Although painful - it was certainly better than being blind - so I really didn't have anything to complain about.

The retinal specialist recommended that I not do much reading for the next 60 days, therefore I stopped blogging and all but stopped reading anything on the internet. Gradually, the sight in my left eye improved as the thousands of "gnats" slowly faded. The bigger problem was the thick black liquid (from the hemmorrhage) which was very slow to re-absorb into my eye and in fact is still not completely gone even today. At any rate, the danger of further retinal tears is now largely over and I can get back to participating on the internet and blogging.

Obviously, my rental business didn't stop just because of my eye problem. I really wasn't under any restriction during this period (other than limiting my reading) and I have continued to work on my rental business about 12-16 hours per week as usual.

During my break, I have also taken up competition shooting, which has been a lot of fun. I am now participating in various defensive type shooting sports including IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association) and USPSA (Unites States Practial Shooting Association), both of which are very good practice for anyone that carries a concealed handgun. My goal is to practice a lot over the winter and to be competitive in matches starting in the spring.

That's about it. I'll be back to blogging about the rental property business with my next post.