Our first blog post of 2012! (And our first one, in like, a month, right?) To keep it relatively simple, here’s a generic 2011 recap survey:
1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Matt – moved outside of the western suburbs of Chicago
Angel – taught English as a legit teacher
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Matt – Nope and nope. I don’t even remember them!
Angel – What he said.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Matt – What? I don’t think so. Um…
Angel – Yes! Two dear friends from our home church both had their first babies not too long ago. I’m so excited for them!
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Matt – Jen
Angel – Yes, 2011 was a sad year My aunt Jen passed away after a bone marrow transplant and a good friend from home passed away in a car accident. Both were so young. It’s still unbelievable to me.
5. What places did you visit?
Matt – Arizona, LaPorte, Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou
Angel – What he said
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Matt – Amazing Mandarin skills
Angel – What he said
7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Matt – I’m not very good with dates, so this one is proving to be problematic.
Angel – I’m also not good with dates, but Jen passed away Memorial Day weekend, and I will always remember that weekend as a terrible weekend, even if I don’t remember the dates. Matt and I were camping that weekend, and it literally rained the whole time, except for when were almost caught in a tornado at the campground while sitting in my car.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Matt – Feeling good about finishing the semester
Angel – The first time I took the bus by myself in Tianjin
9. What was your biggest failure?
Matt – Not being able to help my dad sell his business before I left
Angel – Every time I went to the printer’s office at our school
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Matt – Nothing serious, but the whole trip up to Tianjin, I felt like I was going to die from food poisoning.
Angel – Just a bad cold during the week of my birthday
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Matt – Macbook
Angel – Projector
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Matt – My dad for selling his practice
Angel – My awesome husband for being amazing every day
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Matt – In the news in general, Anthony Weiner.
Angel – Call me a cultural snob/elitist, but Chinese people who are constantly spitting everywhere. I just can’t get used to that. I still flinch every time.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Matt – Health insurance
Angel – Health insurance
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Matt – Food
Angel – Having a Western bathtub
16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Matt – “You and I” by Ingrid Michaelson
Angel – a song I wrote earlier in the year after being laid off about things being difficult and depressing, but not giving up hope. It also came to my mind a lot during the week of Jen’s funeral.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
Matt – Happier
Angel – Happier
b) thinner or fatter?
Matt – Thinner
Angel – I don’t know, I haven’t weighed myself since we got to China, but my pants still fit well, so hopefully thinner or the same
c) richer or poorer?
Matt – Poorer
Angel – Poorer, but with fewer expenses
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Matt – Trust that everything would be okay in the end
Angel – Organizing time with my students
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Matt – Worrying
Angel – Assignments for my students
20. How did you spend Christmas in 2011?
Matt – Went to church and rode around Tianjin with Ariel
Angel – Ate breakfast at McDonald’s with Matthew, went to the international fellowship, hung out with Ariel
21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Matt – I fall in love every day with the same woman
Angel – Nope, just stayed in love
22. What was your favorite TV program?
Matt – Modern Family
Angel – Dollhouse
23. What did you do for your birthday in 2011?
Matt – Went out for Indian food with my whole family
Angel – I was super sick, but Matthew still took me out to Coldstone and to Walmart
24. What was the best book you read?
Matt – Oryx and Crake
Angel – this free Nook book called Mary Magdalene – A Woman Who Loved. I also loved The Hunger Games
25. What did you want and get?
Matt – A job in China
Angel – Lots of things, a Kinect a projector, to hang out with David in Chicago
26. What did you want and not get?
Matt – To hang out with my family for Christmas
Angel – An office chair and a memory foam pad. And a Chinese massage. (Maybe next week?)
27. What was your favorite film of this year?
Matt – Green Hornet
Angel – X Men
28. Did you make some new friends this year?
Matt – Yes
Angel – Yes
29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Matt – If I was already fluent in Chinese
Angel – Knowing the expectations of our school about teaching and grading, etc.
30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Matt – Old Chinese Man
Angel – Boring teacher?
31. What kept you sane?
Matt – My wife. That means you. Though sometimes you did make me a little insane. You can’t have the honey without the macademias.
Angel – Matthew. Jesus.
32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Matt – Fancy? What is this, England? That Kim Jong-un guy is pretty fancy.
Angel – I don’t know, I guess Kiefer Sutherland because 24 got me through many hours of boring essay grading.
33. What political issue stirred you the most?
Matt – Occupy Wall Street
Angel – Environmental Protection and Food Safety
34. Who did you miss?
Matt – My family
Angel – I probably missed our dog the most since we lived with her every day.
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Matt – Even if someone says the water is okay, if you suspect it’s bad, don’t drink it.
Angel – Never trust a Chinese person giving you directions. No matter how confident they sound.
Clearly, updating the blog hasn’t been going so well.
I blame it on 4th quarter craziness at work and not wanting to do anything creative or too computer-involved when we get home.
But 4th quarter is almost over, and I’m on a vacation of sorts this week, so it’s time for an update!
First off, my old Dell couldn’t handle running CS5 (which I use a lot for work, but would also like to have for personal web design activities), so we invested in a new Windows computer for me. After a failed attempt at getting a Samsung laptop that was way too much like a Mac for my tastes, I went with the Sony Vaio. I’m a huge fan. It does everything I want it to super quickly. And the light-up keyboard is pretty fun too.
I’m sure there are other things that have happened since we updated last, but blah blah blah, they’re probably not that interesting.
So on to the interesting update, and the title of this post (also the reason for my pseudo-vacation)…
My eyes the day after surgery...almost back to normal.
Yesterday I had lasik surgery. To begin, let me state that I am not a typical person who wanted lasik. I never thought much about it at all, since I actually don’t mind wearing contacts.. I could put them in and take them out without a mirror, never had dry eyes, even wore them swimming, rarely lost them or ripped them, and never got eye infections.
Most other people I’ve talked to who have had lasik got it for one of those reasons, and they love that those inconveniences have gone away.
But for me, those things weren’t issues. So why did I get lasik?
Quite frankly, my biggest driving factor (other than that our insurance covered part of it) was that if the world ends as we know it, and I happen to survive through that, I would like to be able to see. I figure if I live through a post-apocalyptic type of scenario, contacts and glasses aren’t going to be easy to find. So I better get good vision while I can.
Weird? Yes. But it got me through it. That and singing Kirk Franklin songs really quietly while they were doing the surgery.
So compared to probably many people who have had lasik, I was a bit more apprehensive than most. Because I didn’t really have a strong, pressing reason in front of me to get the surgery.
In fact, sitting in the examination room with Dr. Rosin before the surgery, I started sweating, almost crying, and wanting to throw up. I came thisclose to telling him that it was all a mistake, and really, I probably didn’t need to do this, so let’s just cancel the whole thing.
But Matthew had taken the morning off work and driven me almost an hour away to Arlington Heights for the surgery, so I figured I better just go ahead and trust God with it.
If I hadn’t been told what would happen in the surgery, and more importantly, if I hadn’t read the legal waiver you have to sign before the surgery, I probably would have gone into it with no worries at all.
But knowing that they were going to tear a flap in my cornea and then laser into my eyeball was a little scary. Then reading all of the tragic scenarios that could happen during or after the surgery (most of them ending in complete blindness) that were contained in the waiver really pushed me to the edge. I was ready to cancel the surgery as soon as I read the waiver, but the doctor’s assistant assured me that Dr. Rosin had been doing lasik surgeries for 15 years and had never had a patient go blind. It was just legal procedure to include the waiver.
So I agreed to go ahead with it, but my biggest fear was that I would happen to be the one patient in 15 years to actually need the waiver for a reason.
The day before the surgery, I kept looking at things, imagining what it would be like not to be able to see anymore. Once the time came to actually go into the surgical room, I was a nervous wreck, but determined that whatever happened, I would trust God. After all, I would probably have better devotional times if I became blind and couldn’t work anymore.
So the surgery began. They gave me a valium first to relax me, but I don’t think it did much for me. I was super tense the entire surgery. The doctor had told me before it started that once they cut the flap in my eye, I would have a brief period of blindness where I wouldn’t see anything. (That was when I started sweating and wanted to walk out.) Fortunately, the blindness part wasn’t as scary as I thought.
They started everything so quickly that I didn’t even realize the blindness/flap-cutting part was happening until it was practically over. It was sort of like being hit in the face with something, where you don’t black out and lose consciousness, but you just can’t see for a few seconds. The whole time, the nurse and the doctor were talking me through it and counting backwards. It felt pretty scientific (or perhaps like a rocket launch) with the nurse announcing in a professional-sounding voice: “15 seconds, 10 seconds, 5 seconds, Interlase procedure now complete.”
So that was actually pretty comforting that they took it all quite seriously. I remember my dentist growing up would chat with the nurses and not even look down sometimes when he was working on my teeth. Not the best feeling when someone has a metal poking object jammed in your mouth. But anyway, Dr. Rosin was very professional and attentive throughout the surgery.
After the blindness/flap cutting part was over, I could see again, so that was a huge relief. My vision was really blurry, but at least I knew I wouldn’t be blind after it was all over. Then they removed the clamp or whatever that had kept my eye suctioned open, put some eye drops in, and put on another clamp to keep my eye open.
It was time for the laser part of the surgery that would correct my vision. I could see throughout the laser part, but just a blinking orange light. My vision was still blurry. Nothing hurt at all, but I could smell the laser burning my eye, which was a little creepy.
Then after a few seconds (and more professional counting-down from the nurse), it was over. Dr. Rosin took some kind of object (I could sort of see, but not very well) and smoothed down the flap of my cornea. I couldn’t feel it at all, I could only see each time he moved the object toward my eyeball. It was so amazing to me that the anesthetic worked that well.
Then I got to close my eye, and he did the whole thing over again in my other eye. I finally felt my body release some tension when we moved on to the second eye, because I knew what to expect and that I wasn’t going to be completely blind after it was all over.
All in all, the surgery took about ten minutes, maybe.
Afterward, I stood up and followed Dr. Rosin out of the room back into the exam room. He asked me how I was doing, and I said, “Pretty good. I’m not blind, at least.”
He laughed and said, “Of course not.”
Then he told me that once the anesthetic wore off, I would have a period of a few hours with itching and burning that could get pretty intense, and that I would hate him and wish I had never had the surgery. But that it would go away and that I should try to sleep it off.
They gave us a bunch of eye drops to take and sleeping goggles so that I wouldn’t touch my eyes during the night. The biggest thing to remember, they said, was to not rub my eyes at all for 7 days, because it could make the flap come out of place.
I was just happy that I wasn’t blind, so I didn’t much care about anything that was going to come next.
But boy did it get bad. He wasn’t kidding. It was intense pain for about 4 hours after the surgery, almost as soon as we got in the car (it was a really sunny day, and my eyes were very sensitive to light). They had given me dark sunglasses, but it wasn’t enough. The pain was so bad, I took my scarf and wrapped it around my eyes too, trying to keep all the light out. I was writhing around in the seat and moaning, it hurt so badly.
We got home and I stumbled into the bedroom, dropping my coat, scarf, and gloves along the way in the hallway. Matthew followed me and closed the curtains.
I was still moaning and complaining about how much light was coming into the room, so I asked him to put a blanket up over the window too. He got the blanket secured, and it was a little better, but there was still a lot of pain.
For anyone who has ever had a contact rip in their eye before, that was the pain that I had, only there was nothing that could be done about it. I couldn’t even touch my eye. I was crying and moving around, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt so much.
The most comfortable position during the first few hours after the surgery was sitting cross-legged and leaning forward with my chin in my hands. I have no idea why, maybe it relieved the pressure around my eyes or something to be facing forward like that, but when I sat that way and closed my eyes, they would feel better for a few minutes.
I wasn’t able to sleep at all, I was in so much pain, except for when I sat in the odd cross-legged position. But then my legs would get numb since I was leaning on them, and that would wake me up again.
I told Matthew that I wish they had given me a painkiller instead of valium, because it was pure misery.
He called the doctor to make sure this level of pain was normal, and they said it was normal and should subside in a few hours. They also said I could have some over-the-counter pain medicine.
So I took ibuprofen and tried to rest.
Throughout this time, Matthew was the best. He forced me to take my eye drops, even while I was crying and asking him not to do it because it hurt so much to open my eyes. He forced me to eat. (Well, not force feeding me, but just urging me to do it until I ate of my own volition
I finally was able to fall asleep, and he went back to the office.
Then PS started barking to be let out of her cage (I’ll assume she was worried about me, and not just being a brat) so I got up and let her out. I went back to the dark bedroom and closed the door again, feeling a bit like a vampire.
I fell back asleep for a couple more hours and woke up again when it was dark.
I was feeling a lot better, though my eyes were still a little sore. But I was able to walk around and even turn on some of our dimmer lights. (By this time, it was dark outside.) I had a little to eat and went back to bed since it still hurt to look at anything for too long.
I listened to some podcasts, and by about 9 or 10 pm, I was feeling a lot more energetic. I was even able to read a little bit. And my vision was getting better and better.
It was actually really hard to fall asleep that night, because I’ve been wearing contacts almost every day for about 11 years now, so to fall asleep while also being able to see made me feel like I had forgotten to take my contacts out. Pretty weird feeling.
My Tron Goggles
Today has been much better than yesterday in terms of the pain. I can obviously type, and I can read, watch tv, etc. without any pain. But the itching is pretty bad. In fact, it’s time for me to go get some more eye drops in because I’m starting to itch again. And the itching really sucks because, of course, it makes me want to scratch and rub my eyes, and I can’t.
I’ve discovered that wearing the sleep goggles during the day actually helps a lot, because it keeps the dry air from getting near my eyes as much, and then my eyes don’t itch as badly. But it’s kind of hard to go out because the goggles look a little odd. (Matt and I call them my “Tron” goggles.) I’m hoping the itching subsides by tomorrow so I can start doing my normal activities outside the house as well as inside the house. But it has been nice having a few days off work and getting stuff down around the house.
Well, that’s all for this update. Hopefully we’ll have more soon!
Just because it’s been awhile…here’s what is going on in our lives these days:
Matt just started doing P90X. I’m impressed with his dedication to it. He even bought stretcher band things from Amazon so he can do the weight exercises without having a whole weight set in our small apartment. Unfortunately, one of the bands ripped in half the other day while he was working out. I guess he’s just that amazingly strong. No stretch band stands a chance against those biceps. Or triceps. Or abs. Or whatever he uses to pull them.
I watch Matt doing P90X. I don’t do P90X. Enough said.
For my exercising, I do physical therapy exercises, which are mild, gentle, strengthening, and achievable! In fact, my physical therapist tells me, “Don’t do it to the point of pain! When it hurts, stop.” That is my kind of mentality for working out. I’m doing physical therapy for my shoulder, which some of you may have had the privilege of hearing. When I rotate my left shoulder, there is this loud popping sound that happens. It doesn’t hurt too much, but it sounds gross and feels kind of uncomfortable. My doctor said it is the beginnings of rotator cuff tendinitis, and since my insurance covers it, I’m seeing a physical therapist every week to strengthen the left shoulder muscles. I can definitely feel a big difference in strength between my right and left shoulders, and as I do the exercises for my left shoulder, it is improving my strength. It’s not totally there yet, and I still have the popping sound, but it’s making a difference, and I love to see difference-making when I exercise.
We went to New York City last week to see friends, family, and for a couple of work meetings. Saw lots of great people and had a fun, albeit hectic time. At the end of the trip, we took the bus down to Baltimore and stayed at David’s house for a couple of days, which was much more relaxing because he took over on navigating us around and I didn’t have to worry about getting lost. It was good to see everyone and get away for awhile, but I’m glad to be back sleeping in the same place every night and knowing where everything is.
While we were gone, PS developed two interesting problems. She got fleas (apparently this is the worst year for fleas in 20 years, just like it has been for mosquitoes). We’ve been putting a natural topical solution on her each month to kill fleas and ticks, but it’s not strong enough to handle the intensity of the flea season this year. We took her to the vet and they gave us a stronger thing that kills all of the life cycles of the flea and some spray for our apartment. We applied the medicine and spray and seem to have killed all the fleas…but PS probably is allergic to their saliva because her stomach is really red and itchy still, even though the fleas have been dead for almost a week now. She also has an eye infection of some kind. The vet said it is either from a bacteria/virus infection and will go away now that we’re giving her medicine for it or it is from some condition that causes dry eye. If it’s the dry eye problem, we’ll have to give her eye drops for the rest of her life. So we’re applying the medicine and waiting to see what happens. We’re a day into her treatment for that and so far no strong signs of improvement. She is quite pathetic with this eye problem since she can’t fully open her eyes. She walks around squinting at us because it hurts her to open her eyes all the way. And we thought she was good at being desperate-looking before…we even let her sleep in bed with us last night because we feel so bad for her. If I didn’t know better, I would think she was faking it to get special treatment, haha. But after the vet put some numbing stuff in her eyes yesterday to give her an eye test, she was opening her eyes all the way and running around like normal. Then when the numbing stuff wore off, she was back to being sad, lethargic and squinty again. So I can tell she really is in pain. But I’m sure she’s enjoying the special treatment too.
Another thing occupying quite a bit of our time is work. It’s still crazy, but at least we have some help now. We hired several new people, and I no longer have to do things like blog. So hopefully that will give me some incentive to do personal blogging. Now that we’re freed up a little bit from minor things at work, we have more pressure to do things like meet our financial goals. That’s a little more stressful than just trying to maintain and get little things done, but we’ve both had more stressful jobs before…just have to remember that it could definitely be worse.
The final thing occupying a lot of our time is church stuff. I don’t know if I mentioned it on our blog yet, but I joined the choir at our church earlier this year. It’s been a really great experience, but definitely gives me a lot more of a “schedule” at church. The good things that come along with that are that I’m forced to get to know lots of people instead of just the cursory acquaintanceship that usually happens when you’re not involved in anything at church and it forces me to actually go to church, even when I’m busy or tired. But the bad thing is, of course, feeling like I’m always “doing” something at church. Still, I’d say the pros outweigh the cons, and I’m really growing a lot spiritually, especially during our rehearsals. That’s one thing I really enjoy about the choir – it reminds me a lot of Gospel Choir at Wheaton. The rehearsals are actually better times of worship and spiritual growth than concerts, or in our case, Sunday mornings leading worship. While I do choir, Matt goes to our young adults group and holds down the fort there. We’re also looking forward to a new small group season this fall and deepening some relationships there.
Well, that’s it for now. I’ve got to start getting our apartment cleaned up and organized since we’ve been busy non-stop upon our return from the East Coast. The mess is starting to get to me.
Question (because it’s always good to end a blog post with an interaction of some kind):
What is your favorite fall activity?
And because it’s also good to have media in a blog post, here is a video of PS with her eye squinting:
Today, we wanted to take a bike ride. We also wanted to take P.S., but she can’t keep up with us on bikes (let alone walking). So, we decided to improvise:
I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled this Friday, my first since last October. Not October as in three months ago, but the October before that, right after we got engaged. I knew that engaged women need to go to the doctor and figure out “family planning.” All the Christian relationship/engagement/sex books talk about that. So within three weeks of our engagement, Matt and I were sitting in the doctor’s office talking about contraception methods. I was nervous, as I always am when going to the doctor, but overall it wasn’t too awful. I didn’t feel like she gave us too many revelations, but she did support our decision to go with birth control pills as the cheapest, most foolproof method.
She scheduled me for a pap smear the next week and said she would write me a birth control prescription when I was ready to start taking it.
The next week I went back for the pap smear and promptly regretted our decision to get married. It was SO painful. I had heard that it would be uncomfortable, but that it shouldn’t be painful. So when it hurt, I told my doctor, and she tried a smaller instrument. It still hurt, just as badly, so she stopped and said that since it was hurting, I shouldn’t have a pap smear done until after I was sexually active.
Wait. So sex is going to hurt this badly??
I tried asking her some clarifying questions to see why it was better to have my husband hurt me this much rather than a doctor.
“It won’t hurt the same when you break your hymen having sex,” she said. “It will be quicker and you’ll want to do it. It’s better than having your hymen stretched during a pap smear.”
I walked out of the exam room with a newfound awe for every married woman I saw. I stared at the receptionist’s wedding ring as I turned in my paperwork after the appointment. How did she endure such pain? How is she so happy, calm, and normal?
I walked bowlegged for two days after that attempted pap smear, and it wasn’t even a FULL procedure! She never even got near the cervix!
So here we are, over a year later.
Our insurance has changed, so I’m going to a new doctor. Sex doesn’t hurt anymore (that is a story for another self-disclosing post), and I’m pretty sure my hymen is stretched enough to handle the pap smear this time.
But my general fear of doctors and my memory of the last pap smear are not making it easy to approach this next appointment with peace. What if she isn’t gentle enough? Honestly, the idea of anything touching my cervix still weirds the heck out of me, the same kind of feeling I get when someone tries to stick a finger in my belly button. It’s not painful, exactly, but it’s intolerable.
So that’s where I’m at this week…dreading Friday’s cold, sterile table, barely-there paper gown, and awkward stirrups. I guess it seems a little silly to pray about a pap smear in light of global tragedies like Haiti’s earthquake, but thankfully God is big enough to handle both. I will be praying during that appointment and asking for supernatural peace. I’ll let you know how it goes. Fortunately, I have Avatar to look forward to on Saturday as a reward for my suffering on Friday.
P.S. Something funny: When I showed this post to Matt, he said, “Wow. That’s really self-disclosing. But I like it. It’s from the heart…or from the cervix.”
My aunt Jen passed away after a bone marrow transplant and a good friend from home passed away in a car accident. Both were so young. It’s still unbelievable to me.
