health schmealth

Sadly, I can't go "health schmealth" anymore. As I grow older, parts of me are just getting tired. This year, my litany of woes continued to grow, and so I finally finally decided to do something about the things I could do something about - bridgework for my teeth (yes, I honestly prefer to chew instead of gumming my food to death) despite my fear of the dentist (I take on the multiple injections, both long and short, with a certain degree of quivering resignation), and help for my eyes.

For around 25 years, I have been relying on my right eye for almost all of my sight, as my poor near-sighted astigmatic left eye can barely see jack shit. A decade or so ago, i had a brief dalliance with glasses (smashed, lost, sat upon, bent) and contact lenses (or, more properly, contact lens - since I wore only one) which did not work out (swallowed it - a long and somewhat amusing story). But with the onset of age and the incipient threat of farsightedness for my working eye, a visit to the optha was in the cards.

When lenses were tested for my left eye, and when we achieved one that permitted me to SEE, I was beside myself with joy. And a little vertigo, which was not because of sublime emotion but due to the fact that my brain was merging my suddenly-sighted lazy eye with my right workhorse. I walked around with the tester, looking like a poor imagining of a steampunk commoner, but I was really happy.

I prepared myself for the cost of my new progressive lenses and frame and was a little shocked when it wasn't that astronomical (compared to my bridgework, which all my descendants will need to work to pay for, long after I quit this mortal coil). Unlike our parents' bifocals, the progressive lenses integrate near, middle and far distance corrections in one miraculous curve. It will require practice to shift my eyes around but that's fine.

My diet (do not blame the lovely liempo!) and smoking (gasp! can it be?!) SHOULD be next, but the willingness is not there. Yet. I think I can work out the diet thing, but smoking is... what? A quality of life issue (hahaha)? Overwrought overextended teenage rebellion? A writer's crutch? intellectually, I know it's horrible for me but part of me says "too bad, then" even as my cells, perhaps inevitably, form into the letter "C".

We'll see. (Or is it "Will C?")