Day 670
Cataract stops play
I had decided to take advantage of our stay in Medellin and treat myself to some new glasses. For my regularly reader you may remember my frame broke back in Canada and although a fantastic optician gave me a new frame for free, I have managed to sit on my glasses, scratch the lenses, and was not seeing as well as I should. A new pair of glasses should sort me out!
Tom came along with me so he could help me chose my new frames. We decided to walk the 5 miles to the opticians and see more of Medellin. It was busy, there were bright modern buildings mixed with near derelict work shops. Cars, buses, motorbikes and people rushing by us. Exciting perhaps, but for Tom and I it just confirmed what we knew, give us the peace and quiet of countryside over the city any day.
The opticians were in one of those bright modern buildings. Colombia’s opticians have an excellent reputation and I felt relaxed and confident. Things didn’t quite go to plan though. First, they found I had a severe mite infestation. Tom particularly enjoyed watching my mites, or ‘little friends’ as the optician referred to them, on the big screen, ugh! No worries though a cream would soon sort the blighters, phew!
Then the bad news, it wasn’t new glasses I needed but a cataract operation. I had taken the results including photographs of my last eye test and he could see that my cataract was fast growing, which explained my deteriorating sight, rather than the battered glasses. The optician said there was little point in getting new glasses as in a few months they would be little use.
Clutching my ‘little friends’ cream we headed out in somewhat of a daze. We were leaving the following day for a family get together in Thailand. Should we get the operation done in Thailand while there, or in Colombia when we return, or in Australia when we get there, or back in the UK? After a couple of hours pondering, we decided rather than return to Colombia and continue our journey through South America we would head home to the UK and get my eyes sorted. Then I’d be able to enjoy the landscape of Patagonia in full detail!
So, we are now just a few hours away from being reunited with our family and friends. Heck we can even watch the coronation live. Hopefully my little friends will have departed and we will deplete our savings and get my eyes sorted.
We hope to be home for just a couple of months and then, South America, WE WILL BE BACK!
