A War to Wage

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

I know that this is something that most people don't write about, but I feel a little bit like picking a fight today, and the only things I can fight are CF and Ocular Hypertension...and the devil, who has given me quite a battle today.

Almost slipped that one past you, huh? Last week I was diagnosed with ocular hypertension. If you aren't aware of the condition, it can lead to glaucoma, which is an altogether different kind of animal. I wrote about my initial thoughts on my other blog, but now that I've had some time to think about it, I wanted to address it head on.

Most of the time, I don't make this a personal blog, but last night I was faced with a reality. As my eyes stung from the drop put in them to hopefully reduce my internal eye pressure, I realized that this is going to be a lifelong fight. What we're trying to do (and by we I mean my doctor, my wife, and I) is prevent glaucoma. I haven't even done all that much research on the topic yet, but I've read enough to know that having it is no fun.

It took me a few years to figure out that I needed to be proactive about my daughter's CF, at least past the treatments and enzyms. Those happened very soon, but the fundraising, the advocacy, and awareness took a while. Going to the gala showed me that it was time to get moving again on that, and I am. We have a couple  of events in the works for fundraising that I'll be introducing in the future.

But this Ocular Hypertension thing has me in the same emotional place I was with Sam's CF. I have daily treatments (nothing like what you have for CF), but past that I really don't have any thoughts about it. Right now, I'm all wait and see.

There is a new war brewing on my horizon. Someday, I'm going to have to get in the game with this condition and own it. Just to clear the air, Samantha and CF is my concern and priority. Bad vision, or even loss of vision, is less important to me than my daughter. The question will just become at that point whether I can handle a two-front war or not.

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