WE’RE BACK, GLITCHES!

Hey there.

You may not remember me. My name is (not actually) Darren Blake. I’m a random writer from the internet who tries to entertain, inform, educate, and just make a general mockery of the writing life.

And I’ve been gone.

Like, for a while.

As you may or may not remember, if you are the one who used to follow this blog, I’ve had vision issues for the last several years. And, for the last several years, I’ve been putting off what needs doing to fix it.

Well, in November, it all came crashing down around me. I woke up pretty much blind.

To be clear, I’d been pretty much blind for the longest time, but this was different somehow. I could no longer trust myself to walk to the bus stop without the aid of a white cane. I could no longer see even the fuzzy outline of letters on my phone keyboard.

And as even more time passed, I stopped being able to see my computer screen even at 1500%+ magnification.

In short, I was fnarged.

So I sucked it up and went to a doctor for the medical clearance my Ophthalmologist required, jumped through a crap-ton of hoops to satisfy his ego, and on July 15, 2025, my Ophthalmologist operated on my left eye. The cataract was gone, and I could actually see again. My next-day follow-up went swimmingly, and I learned that my vision might take a few days or a few weeks to be as close to perfect as it will be, and in the meantime, I was to keep following the eye drop routine (four times daily the first week, then three for the second, two for the third, and once daily for the fourth week).

Yay. And stuff.

On July 22, I went in for my one-week follow-up, and that’s where things veered off in a bad way.

The appointment itself was good. I learned that in a week’s time, my left eye had already returned to being 20/30, which the doctor said was really good, considering how bad my cataracts were. I was thrilled, and things were set to have the second surgery on July 24.

And then I passed out.

Twice.

For no apparent reason.

Right there in the doctor’s office.

Needless to say, the surgical coordinator, whom I was talking to at the time, was more than a little concerned at having someone pass out in her little office. So, naturally, she called 911.

To make this slightly long story a little less long, they took me next door to the hospital (I didn’t even get to ride in the ambulance, they just wheeled me over on a stretcher), and after a few hours in the ER, I was admitted for two days.

I’m still not entirely sure what the cause was, but the doctor in the hospital said that dehydration was likely a factor. On top of that, my blood pressure was extremely low at times (a fact that made me laugh, since high blood pressure was one of the things keeping my cardiologist from clearing me for the eye surgery right away).

After a couple of days of a lovely, painful IV dripping saline into my veins and bland “low cholesterol / low sodium” hospital food (being a cardiac patient officially), they released me.

Unfortunately, I had already missed the time of my second surgery, and I was told that they would not reschedule until I’ve gotten cleared again, due to the incident.

And that’s where I stand of the time this posts. I’m giving myself a small reprieve, letting the eye drops schedule happen. Those buggers sting. Part of me is glad not to have to do both eyes right now. Then again, it will mean another full month of drops, rather than the truncated time having both surgeries so close together. Win some, lose some.

Oof. This medical crap is weird.

There’s other medical crap going on, but the main thing I wanted to talk about was the eye stuff and why things did not go according to plan. Even though you didn’t even know the plan, with my having dropped off the internet while I was completely blind.

WRITING IN PUBLIC

Now that I have my sight back, at least in one eye, my next goal is to figure out the revision crap for Best Enemies Forever, a story I know is good (as a concept) but has too many issues to try to simply do a copy edit and push it out.

I have a bare-bones concept of a few of the things I need to work out, but since I have not had a chance to go back and do my re-read yet, I can’t commit to any specific things. (How’s that for vague?)

I’ve joined with one of the members of the Gaming Groupies to form the GG Writers’ Club. On the weeks we’re not meeting for games, he and I will be meeting to discuss writing strategies, talk about our works in progress, talk about said progress, and just in general geek out about writing. I’m very excited for this, and I will need to come up with an internet nickname for him to protect his privacy as I continue to talk about him.

Also, I’m not sure I have any writing goals for 2025, other than working on Best Enemies Forever.

GAMING THINGS

My first day back with a working eye, and we were not able to play my Pathfinder! But we did get to play a round of Sounds Fishy, which is a fun deception trivia game.

Since I’ve been blind, I have not been able to participate properly in Game Night, but I have made a point to show up and chat. When the others play a game, I listen in and try not to spoil it by giving the answers. (Though when they’ve played Blather Round, I have joined the audience and typed in guesses. I get points when I’m right, but since I’m not actually playing, I can’t win. It works out.)

WRAPPING UP

Blindness sucks. Especially if you have had vision your entire life that is eventually taken away. The miracle of modern surgery has restored my sight, and I am very grateful to my ophthalmologist for that.

The lesson here, which I may or may not have learned (probably not, knowing me), is that if you are told that something is wrong that you don’t want to disrupt your entire life, don’t put it off until it becomes a huge problem. Take care of it as early as possible.

Will I do that in the future? Something tells me no. But it is a lesson.

Next entry I will tell you what I’ve actually been up to since the blindness became actual blindness. It’s not that interesting, but this is my blog — when is it ever interesting?