Nov 9, 2009 Update

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to give everyone a short update on how Dad is doing. Just over a week ago, Dad went down to Palm Desert with Woody to hangout with Nedra for a few days. They came home on Sunday, Nov 1. The next morning Dad says he was having difficulty seeing, especially out of his left eye. Everything looked distorted. At tennis that morning, yeah he stilled played tennis, he could not see the ball until it was right in front of him and he really couldn't see the faces of the people he was playing against. He couldn't read the newspaper either. Fortunately, he had mentioned this to his regular dr about a month earlier who set him up with an eye specialist, which happened to be that day, Monday. The specialist saw dad and told him that he has Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and scheduled him for eye surgery last Wed, Nov 4th.

Tom took him to the surgery on the 4th and exactly what they did is a little sketchy, what they did was place a membrane in the back of his eye that is filled with a solution, so basically a bubble. The body absorbs the solution over time and lays down a new membrane that the eye can focus on. Dad believes the dr told him that he has dry AMD as opposed to wet AMD, in case you want to do further research. Dad does have stitches in the back of his eye and right now they are itching, which means they are healing. It will take 3 - 7 days for the body to absorb the fluid in the bubble and Dad is scheduled to go back to the dr this Thursday at 3:00. Dad's vision over the past few days has been getting slowly better, where last Thursday he probably had a 90% or greater loss and now he is able to see some, but he says it is like looking at something under water. As John explained it to me. the bubble is placed in front of the retina or his focal point and until it is absorbed, his focus is out of whack. Dad's eye was sore for the first few days but the pain is gone and replaced with the itching.

Dad also has been having problems with his hearing for the past several months. Dad went to Costco hearing center and said "my grandkids are complaining that my hearing aid is whistling', so the guy said "I can fix that" and plugged the vent holes in the hearing aide. Unfortunately, those holes are required to allow your ear to remain dry and with them plugged he basically had sweat in his ear that developed a fungus that wouldn't go away. After several months of medication, Dad went to a different hearing center where the lady looked at his hearing aide and told him that someone plugged his hearing aide and that was causing his problems. Well after removing his hearing aide for awhile, the medication had a chance to work and he now has a new hearing aid, just got it last Thursday. The hearing aid is actually outside the ear with a small tube leading inside the ear. He can hear much better and these new hearing aides don't whistle. He is still having a little problem hearing in a large group with several people talking and says he especially has difficulty hearing the women. I think it is a feature of the hearing aide that many men would pay for, but we are going to go back in tomorrow and see if they can't fine tune it a little more to help with this situation.

I am making a list of question for the eye dr on Thursday, so if there are any questions that you would like asked, just let me know and I will add them to the list.

Overall, Dad is in good spirits and hopeful that the dr and his eyesight will allow him to resume playing tennis shortly. Al and Woody have both called checking on Dad as well as his neighbors.

Love,

Bill and Dad