going blind in one eye?

Today's walk took me six, maybe seven blocks to the eye doctor. The last time I was there was in 2017 when I had shooting stars. They told me I had beginnings of cataracts. Goodie.

Fast forward to the late summer of 2019 when I had a bout of poison ivy in my eye and I was hypersensitive to my vision. I was thinking I should make an eye appointment but didn't. I was just beginning to get back on my feet financially. Besides, I could see just fine.

Mid fall my glasses were always "dirty". I cleaned and cleaned and they never came clean. The lenses are pretty scratched so eye doctor was on the long list of things to do. Then one day I noticed when I woke up that my glasses were dirty and I wasn't wearing them. My thought was, oh, this is cataracts developing. Good thing medicare happens in a year.

Fast forward to about two weeks ago. I had come home from school and didn't turn on the other lights. The tv was on and I was using my computer. Everything was fine. Then I turned off the computer. I thought, dang, it's dark in here.  For some reason, I decided to do an eye test. I couldn't see much at all thru my right eye.

I stewed a couple of days and had visions of horrible illnesses, like tumors. I was going to call the eye doctor but decided to schedule with the specialist he had sent me to for the shooting stars. That appointment was next week. But I kept stewing. I am my mother's daughter.

I decided to call the eye doctor. I snuck out of the house yesterday and called from the car. I didn't want the roomie to know. "Can you come at 2? "No, I have to work. "How about tomorrow at 8:15 A.M.?" Okay. I'll be there. That is the brilliant thing about an old fashioned independent practice. They can get you in in a heartbeat.

I told the roomy I was headed for a walk at 7:45. I walked the seven blocks. There is no brain tumor or detached retina. Good news. There is a massive cataract. One of the quickest growing kinds and it's thick. It will have to be removed.

But that's not the bad news. It gets worse.

I also have glaucoma. The last time I was there the pressure in my eyes was 17-17.  This time it was 22-78. No that is not a typo.  I brought a sample of eyedrops home with me. He'll write an Rx once he knows how I respond to them. He wanted me to have a sample of something else but didn't have it. He was going to call the sales rep and call before I left for work.  He asked if I was having headaches. Nope.

I have to go back tomorrow. Hopefully, the pressure has gone down. Until the glaucoma is under control they can't do the cataract surgery. (about 3K)

I know people want details but I don't have them. The fancy medical words weren't on my receipt. I wish I would have taken notes. Or brought my wing-woman who remembers all this medical stuff. But I didn't.

The prognosis is not good. Even with the cataract surgery, I will probably not get my vision back in my right eye.

--------

Update

At about 12:15 he called. Not the receptionist. The doctor. The sales rep was in Williamsport so she couldn't bring over samples. He called in an Rx for 4 pills. ($1 each.)

I walked to the Fountain Hill Pharmacy to get the prescription. I haven't been to the neighborhood pharmacy since mom died. He delivered. The pharmacist now has a horrible comeover cut in the Dutch boy style. Then I headed up the Hoffert Street hill to Delaware and out to the doctor's office at Fiot to pick up the third sample. Then I headed home.

I'll have to call this the vision workout.

two libraries, one town, one day

I had no trail walks planned for today. I'm glad because it poured. I haven't been out since last Sunday and I needed to exercise.

I still have a lump on my leg from my fall last week. And my side still hurts. But I guess it's getting better.

I had signed up for a fall prevention workshop at the South Bethlehem branch of the library at noon. The plan was to walk down and back. With the rain I would have been soaked to the skin by the time I reached the five points. Since I needed to take the car I decided to go to the north side branch and do the qigong class.

I cut it close for the qigong class. I had maybe ten seconds to spare. Today we did upper body movements. I was sore and sweaty by the time the meditation period arrived. It just shocks me how slow, repetitive movements make such a impact. I'm sure if I practiced at home, or went every week, I might tone up a little bit.

The meditation period is my least favorite part. I can be quiet and not quite still, but I can't clear my head. Only the people with their eyes open saw me watching out the window.

I left that class and had 15 minutes to get to the south side branch. I lucked out with the parking space. The workshop was on fall prevention and was supposed to include screenings as well as the lecture.  The presenters had thick accents. My guess would be India or the Middle East. The man seemed much more comfortable in front of a crowd.

The lecture lasted about a half hour. During the lecture he talked about different causes of falling and of course mine were environmental. Although I fall over the couch all the time. So maybe not. He told me I needed to strengthen my core and that would help my balance. That bodies were designed to break a fall.

Then the screenings started. The first woman in line was taken by the man. Damn. I should have moved faster. He was still testing her when I left.

I got the woman. We did the stand and walk test that I had to sit, rise, walk 10 feet return and sit again. 12 seconds is normal. I was 12.5. I also received bonus points for not using my hands to get up. The next one she watched me walk. and declared that my left foot turns out. I've know that since I was five. No revelations. Then she was done. I asked about the other test but I was not a fall risk. I told her I really wanted to do the other tests—I'd guarantee her I'd fall. She didn't budge. If I had only gotten the man.

The other lady stood in different positions for seconds and then he tried to push her until she actually moved her feet. He did this a couple times till he reached her break point. Then my favorite was he measured how long she could handle certain positions. Like standing on one leg. She did 30 seconds. I couldn't do two.

I was disappointed. I learned nothing new, and everyone who knows me knows I am a fall risk. I have the scars to prove it.

_____________

Congratulations to my friends at Cardinal Lane Farms. Their goats Sweet Pea and Baby gave birth to a total of six kids this week. Virginia is a bit of a commute so maybe I'll go walk goats at the Awberry Arboretum.

golv: riverview park

Today the Get Out walk was in Carbon County.  It was at Riverview Park in Bowmanstown, which is outside of Palmerton. This was the first of the Carbon/Monroe county walks.

I had no trouble finding it. I'm pretty sure I've never been to the park. Now I have walked north on the D&L to a park that had a boat dock, but this looked nothing like what I remembered. Of course, it's been five years. Things do change. But nothing looked familiar. And more importantly I couldn't see the turnpike tunnel.

The township must have known we were coming. They plowed a few spaces, and the two handicapped spaces. Few people parked in them. Most parked in the snow!

Because this was the Carbon/Monroe group I knew few people, including the leaders. Jen, the leader, must never have done a group walk before she just kept plowing ahead. Finally she looked back to see how stretched out people were. She also made the classic mistake of moving the second the tail end arrived. Christine, who does the LV walks, stops a lot to talk about invasive plants, look at scat and prints, and flowers. Informative, not really exercise. This one was exercise.

She had planned to go out the D&L and then loop back through the park, but with the storm decided to just do a out and back.

We were almost back, and I wanted to take a picture of this pole. I was mid-pack and started moving left. My toe hit a rock and splat. My pole went one way. My phone another. Several people came over to help. I couldn't get up till my knee stopped stinging.

When we arrived back to the start point there was apples on the grill and hot chocolate in the orange cooler. They forgot forks. Eating a baked apple without utensils is interesting. And messy.

Miles/Steps:                  6 miles including snow shoveling. I didn't look at my Fitbit before we started walking. 

Weather:                       36, windy, partly cloudy
Bathrooms:                    locked for the winter 

Wildlife:                         lots of tracks. No animals visible. No birds singing

Extra:                            driving down MacArthur Road, I spied, with my one good eye, little girls wearing Girl Scout vests jumping up and down. Cookies. The car stopped.

Fall update:                   Upon arriving home I checked my knee and lower leg. It hurts, but there was no blood. I thought it was okay. When I took my bath, I knelt down in the tub and wanted to scream. It wasn't my knee. It's the bone that extends from the knee down. The water stung. Clearly I must have bruised it. Plus the rib under my boobs hurts when I cough. Good thing I'm going to the fall prevention workshop next week. Oh wait. Walking in snow will be on the no-no list. Not gonna happen.

it finally snowed

We had a cold snap in November and it's been pretty much fall since. Last weekend it broached on being summer. I saw people wearing wife beaters and Daisy Dukes.

Winter finally arrived Saturday. The weather people on television had whipped themselves into a orgsasmatic frenzy the week prior to the storm. We had two inches of light fluffy snow and then it stopped. I shoveled the front and back, as well as the alley pad. Then we got another round. This time a coating of wet, sloppy snow. I only cleared the front. That turned into a mistake.

The weather people said the snow would change to rain and be gone in the morning. It wasn't. Out front that soggy coating had frozen. I had to get out the salt.

Out back, it was fine, It took some effort to lift it — it was heavy. I did a lot of pushing.

I have this little coloring page that each day I exercise I color in the date. I haven't touched it since last Sunday. I colored a square for yesterday. Snow shoveling is exercise.

fourth street

Today was beautiful. It was April, not January.

I was up early to work at the shelter and home by 8 AM.  After finishing the laundry I knew I wanted to walk, but the question always is where. Since it rained overnight I didn't want to do a natural or gravel path. I walk in enough mud. I decided to stay in the hood.

Basically, I went down to Itaska, talked to the cat lady, Violet, and headed down to Broadway and then Fourth Street. At Webster I turned around and came back. Not an exciting walk. Not even a noteworthy one. But I did it. And that's all that really matters.

Miles/Steps:                  3 miles. 

Weather:                       mid-60e, really windy, mostly sunny

golv: stone soup stroll

The annual Get Out Lehigh Valley stone soup stroll was today. It was the same yet very different.  It has a new name. The group is now "Get Out for Wellness". Why the name change? Because now there are now two sets of hikes. The first is in the Valley. The second are include Carbon and Monroe counties. I might actually attend more of those than the Lehigh Valley ones. I've never heard of any of those parks. And they are on Sunday afternoons. Not great for summer, but we will see.

As usual we all contributed food and Deng and his wife Mai made the soup. I took cooked kale. I also took leftover Christmas cookies. No, silly, they did not go in the soup. They went on the dessert table.

This is the walk where we get prizes for doing the ten walks the previous years. The one prize was a Wildlands t-shirt. Actually I figure this was just a clever ploy to use up old event shirts. I'm not one to dress like a billboard (back of shirt sponsors) so I passed. The other, for people who did more than 14  walks was a knit cap.

Finally we broke into two groups and hit the trails. Christine forgot to take a group picture, as well as a prize winner photo. Yeah!

Our group started on the boardwalk and took many trails finally returning to the environmental center. The soup wasn't done yet so we headed out again. When we came back this time lunch was served.

Miles/Steps:                  3 miles. 

Weather:                       58 at the start, breezy, parly cloudy
Bathrooms:                    I-3.5  

Wildlife:                         white throated sparrows, a pair of red tailed hawks, chimney swifts, cardinals both male and female

trexler park

When I did the last upgrade to my laptop I didn't realize it came with auto correct. Ut oh. I just noticed because it kept changing Trexler to treadler. I'm not even sure what that means. I think it's the pedals on an old fashioned sewing machine. I worry because the names of things in the valley are so odd. I might actually have to read these posts.

I decided to make fish for supper so I wanted to go to the Allentown Farm Market. I decided that Trexler Park would be the best place to walk. Of course I could have chosen Cedar Creek.

I chose to go left, instead of right, when I entered the park. I always go right, toward the bathrooms. So the first thing you reach is the the log cabin. Then I headed up the hill to visit Harry.

Now when you get up to Harry, there is an area off the right that circles the field near Cedar Crest Boulevard. At one time the path was dirt. Then it was gravel, now it's been paved. It's a real path! That path snakes around that meadow and returns you to Harry.

Now Harry stands overlooking the park and there is a wall there. A couple was canoodling  and as I walked around the statue there were two young women doing a boot camp like workout. They were wearing shorts and tanks and laying on the cold ground doing crunches. WHT?

I headed down the hill and around back to the parking lot. I realized that going this direction was partially uphill. I never realized it before. Nor did I realize the other direction was slightly downhill.  Learn something new everyday.

Miles/Steps:                   2 miles. 
Bathrooms:                    Didn't check if they were open  

Wildlife:                         There were about 30 geese. Where were all these geese when I was looking for them? Now it was 20 degrees warmer. Does that make a difference? Did they come out of hiding? Some may have been mallards. I saw two "mutts" where the ducks and the geese mated and produced unique waterfowl.

Weather:                        48, windy, parly cloudy

does running around school like a crazy lady count?

Classes begin on Monday, so I've spent the week getting ready. That's a lot of time on my ass at a computer.  Today was a little different.

I headed to school at 9ish and parked in the five-minute zone right at the door. I stayed for nearly two hours. organizing, stacking, lifting and running between the adjunct office, the printer, and a classroom. Not my classroom because I don't have a key for it. All in all the travel between all three rooms was no more than 200 feet in total.

Somehow I racked up 1.6 miles. With all the lifting I'm declaring that my workout for the day. I even broke a sweat.

I forgot to take the time to even look at the new gallery show. Drats. It will hang at least a month, I will see it another day.

Tonight, however,  I will be at the high school gallery. My niece has some pieces in the senior art show. How is she possibly a senior? It seems like she was just born a few years ago. Time flies.

first walk in snow this year.

Well, the year is only eight days old. What I should have said was winter.

The plan today was to have another athletic adventure. Two in one week! I had planned to go to a chair balance class that I saw in the paper on Sunday.  I went to the website this morning to register and found out it was a series of classes and $53. Oops. Starting next week I'll be teaching Wednesdays.

Time for plan B. Especially since I planned to have my ample butt firmly planted in my chair this afternoon. It's Sheep to Shawl day at the farm show and I've been watching for years. I always say I'm going to go on a Wednesday and watch it, but I don't. I anticipate the experience would be like going to a baseball game. You see much more on television.

Basically, the teams come in with a sheep, shear it, card and spin the wool and make the shawl, all in about 2.5 hours.  Their areas are already set up in the arena and decorated with there themes. The loom already has the warp threaded and it is often dyed. The weft is woven at the show. What color the sheep determines the fiber they'll be using for the weft. They are judged and the first off gets extra points. Afterward, they auction them off. There is also a youth (mostly 4H) competition for high schoolers in the morning called Fleece to Shawl. They don't have to shear a sheep.

It had snowed a little overnight and I had to go to Vallo's bakery for bread. I like to plan my walks and do other errands at the same time. I like to think I'm saving time and energy, but probably not. I worked this morning so I wanted to be close to making it home for couch potato time. I chose Franco Farm on South Mountain.

The pond at the gazebo had a tin layer of ice and most of the fields and trails were snow-covered.

I've walked here a few times and always take the same two paths. With the bare trees and footprints, I discovered many more trails. I just kept following paths and turning frequently. There was a powerline nearby that also had a trail. I figured if worse came to worse I'd follow the powerline back to the road. I couldn't get too far off track.

And I didn't.

Miles/Steps:                   1.5 miles. I should have wandered a little more 
Bathrooms:                     GONE!  

Weather:                        36, windy, sunny

athletic adventure: cardio kickboxing

For Christmas Bonnie received a book of five cardio kickboxing classes from her grandchild. Silly me thought it would be fun to go along. The lowest they had was a three-pack—$20 and gloves. I din't think $6 a class was bad.

Today was the day. We took the 9:30 class. It was nothing like I expected. The warm up was about 15 minutes and was probably as intense as some other classes I've taken in a whole hour. We ran around the gym, did jumping jacks, squat, plants, pushups, the whole nine yards. That's warming up? I used the wall instead of the floor and was dying and we hadn't even started yet.

Then we put on our gloves and started hitting the bag. A lot. The inside of my gloves became sweaty pretty quickly. The outside of me was soaked before we started. We did kicks, jabs, upper cuts and cross somethings. I could do the hitting, but not the kicking well. And the combinations ... I can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

The last fifteen minutes were as tough as the first. Probably worse because now they added crunches. She suggested I sit on the rim of the bag, and my fat ass slid right off. I was on the floor and could do nothing. How I wished I had the picnic table in the park from the Fit Camp. At least then I could do stuff and I knew the adaptions.

I have to go back at least once. I can't let two classes slide. But I'm not sure if it will be next week. EVERYTHING hurts. My elbows, wrists knees, hips. I feel like I went a couple rounds with Leila Ali.

It reminded me a whole like the Barre class I took. Not enough boxing, and too much other crap.

twelfth day of christmas

Clearly this whole Twelve Days of Christmas thing didn't work out.

Friday, day 10, I woke up, hopped out of bed and landed on my butt.  My right knee felt like someone put a dagger thru it. I have no idea what happened. I was fine when I went to bed. Instead of exercising I laid on the couch and read for most of the day. It was cold and damp.

Saturday when I got out of bed I was careful. My knee worked. It still hurt, but more like the knife was pulled out and it was healing. I did some errands and then laid on the couch and read. I thought about doing one of my walking DVDs until I discovered that my new computer doesn't have a DVD slot.

At 4:00 I headed to my brothers church to volunteer at a fundraiser. I didn't go far but I didn't stop. I actually got almost three miles in walking fifty feet at a time. Again, it was cold and damp.

Today the sun was out and I was ready to walk. Life, got in the way. I spent the morning doing laundry and the next five hours hauling my sisters around. I walked a lot, two miles worth. But I never got a real workout in.

I didn't want to go three days without working out. Especially since I have that cardio kick boxing to go to tomorrow. I was reading the Sunday paper and saw a mention of chair balance. That sent me to Google to see if could find something. Save the knee for tomorrow, and still get a workout in.

There wasn't much in that initial search but I was lead to an article "18 Chair Exercise For Seniors". It's one of those list things, that gathers resources from multiple sites. That's when I found this 20 minute workout. I played the first three or four minutes and said this should work. And it did.

There is a lot of upper body work, which is to be expected. But we moved everything but our butts. And it kind of moved as well. I worked up a sweat.

Mission accomplished.

12 Days of Christmas:    #10: What is a leaping lord and where do you find one? 

12 Days of Christmas:    #11: There is a bagpiper in the neighborhood 

12 Days of Christmas:    #10: I forgot to put on the drumming music during the workout. 

the ninth day of christmas

Today it was nice out. According to the weather report the rain is moving back in and then winter will arrive. We will see.

I had to go to the community college to pick some things up so I chose the Bethlehem Township Community Center to walk. It's a one-mile loop the goes around the perimeter of the property. I started at the end and went backwards, I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've done it in this direction. It's a little more hilly, which is good.

I don't remember how long it's been since I've been here. It's at least a year. The ruins are taking on more interesting shapes, especially with the weeds dead. And the No Bike/No Dogs signs seem new.

Since many people have gone back to work and school the center wasn't as busy as it could have been. But there were other people ... and dogs ... out on the path. I can't really go into the center without a membership.

Bonnie received a gift card for cardio kickboxing. She's going on Monday. It's been awhile since I've had a athletic adventure, so I signed up as well. The warm up includes squats, lunges and burpees. All things I can't do. But I think I can hit the bags. I'm going to make believe that it is my roommates.

Miles/Steps:                   1+ mile 

Weather:                        48, windy, sunny

12 Days of Christmas:    #9:There were more than nine ladies dancing here ... Zumba class

the eighth day of christmas

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As I have the past few years, I participated in a First Day Hike today. In Pennsylvania the closest ones to me were Beltsville at 2 and Jacobsburg at 10 and 1:30. I didn't want to go to either. I've done them before. And I really didn't want to head south to French Creek or the the D&L. So where to go.

I decided to check Jersey. Jersey parks show up on my Facebook feed since I clicked on them one day. Target marketing that actually works. There was one on the Warren Highlands trail. I did not want to do that one after all the rain. It was hard enough to walk, dry. The next closest one was Round Valley outside of Clinton. Google said it was 45 minutes. That's probably closer than French Creek. So I picked that.

Round Valley was easy to find. It was pretty much right off the highway. There was plenty of signs and there was a sandwich board out front that said "First Day Hike". Though there wasn't anymore. I pulled into the first lot with cars and it was a meetup of single people over 50. Guess I had a back-up plan if I couldn't find it.

I went to the park office and there was another car pulling out. I thought that maybe they were asking the same question, so I followed them. They led me right to the spot! We left pretty close to 10 am. 

The Round Valley Reservoir is named after the naturally formed circular valley surrounded by Cushetunk Mountain. The trails are covered with gneiss rocks. Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. Gneiss is formed by high temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Orthogneiss is gneiss derived from igneous rock. Paragneiss is gneiss derived from sedimentary rock.

We took the Pine Tree Trail which is covered with wine berry bushes. The guide told us that when you hike this trail in summer to bring bowls to put berries in. Her children fill their bellies.  This trail was pretty easy to walk until we got to the last downhill and it was covered with rocks. I wished I would have taken my walking stick.

When we reached the Reservoir we saw up close how low the water was. It was drained for repairs to the dams. The tower in the back off this picture is part of the dam.

This picture shows how truly empty it is. The tree line is the edge of the Reservoir. 

This trail took us back to the parking lot.

I have never been to this park before and decided then and there that I will do one new park a month. There is two more parks almost connected this one. Plus I have a huge list tat I've been making so there will be plenty to pick from.

Miles/Steps:                   3 mile 

Weather:                        38, windy, started sunny and ended cloudy. Snow flurries.

Wildlife:                         3Because I wasn't looking for them there was 4 waterfowl. I couldn't get close enough to see what kind, but they looked like ducks. The dam hosts 7 pairs of nesting bald eagles. Probably more this year, because there were seven babies last year.

12 Days of Christmas:   #8: This is 8 maids a milking. Now cows anywhere. However, the area under water used to be dairy farms.

the seventh day of christmas

Monday it rained. I didn't walk. I played on the couch and read a book on my Kindle. I'm sure Amazon thought my account was hacked because I NEVER download books. I dislike e-readers. In fact my Kindle is called "paper is superior" because it is. However, it was cold and wet and I didn't want to get in the car and drive to get a real book. And I wasn't walking to the library.

Tuesday it was much better. I went to Monocacy Park because I knew that there would be geese and ducks. There weren't. It was really, really muddy and therefore slippery. The water was clear, but I know it was cold. I took great care not to fall in. In the end I didn't do the "nature" section.

I think that everyone was tired of being cooped up. The park was fairly busy. That surprised me.

Miles/Steps:                   1 mile 

Weather:                        high 40sh, overcast

12 Days of Christmas:   #7: Clearly water fowl in this area must leave for the winter. It surprises me because we have so many Canda geese. I thought a lot about the carol during the walk. 

     The first seven days are mostly about birds. But why? I think I figured it out. Back in the days of Henry XIII, before he got pissed at the pope and started the Church of England, New Years Day was the big feast day. Christmas was a religious day. Then the feast of Stephen, ect. If you were wealthy, you'd need a lot of fowl for the New Year's feast.  

     Of course that all goes out the window if you believe that the carol has a deeper meaning. After the Church of England was formed legend has it that the carol was written so Catholics could sing publicly to the Lord without non-believers knowing. The partridge, of course, is Jesus. Two is the old and new testaments. Three is the holy trinity. Follow the logic and you can figure out the rest. Probably. 4 - Mathew, Mark, Luke, John; 5 - first five books; 6 - creation days; 7 - gifts of the holy spirit; 8 - Beatitudes; 9 - Choirs of angels; 10 - commandments, of course.; 11 - faithful apostles;12 - points in the Apostles creed