OK, I was home again from the hospital and trying
to walk and to talk as I once did. I didn't have any
trouble reading at first, but I did not start with any
long books that is for sure. I wasn't ready.
As the warm weather began in 2002 I received from my
coworkers a gift in the form of an historical non-fiction
book. It was good and I enjoyed reading it, and I got
perhaps a third of the way through it. Then I began to
have a problem with my eyes. They felt gritty and when
I read too much or tried to watch too much TV they got
sore and I had to quit.
After a couple more weeks I went to see my ophthalmologist
who examined my eyes, and told me that I had an eye infection and it turned out to be stubborn. I was on antibiotics for about two and a half months. I became sick and tired of those for sure, but in the end the infection was gone. Trouble was I was afraid to go back into reading again like I used to. When I was young I was a history major and
loved to read many books and sets of books. But now I
was older and this joy was taken from me.
Then a few years went by and I met my cousin again, a guy like me that I had not seen since we were very young. We hit it off well again for people that looked alike, but had little obvious in common. He had written a large book, historical in nature, and I started to read it. It was more than 1000 pages with the notes and I told him that I didn't think that my eyes would let me read the whole thing, but I would try. I did finish it although it would take me almost six months.
After that I had the confidence to read again the kind of
books that I enjoyed. And all that antibiotic medicine...
did it do more for me somehow than just heal my eye infection? Don't know, but everything worked out, or at
least it seems to have.