Post date: Sep 9, 2011 8:48:08 PM
I had a great time in the Midwest with the guys from Shiver (my old college band). I think that you need about a dozen practices before you start to get tight with material. If you count all of the times our band has been together in the past four-to-five years we've probably only now hit the dozen mark. And, we were starting to sound pretty tight by the end. We'll be playing in Kalamazoo, MI next spring so, if you're planning to be in the area, come on out to hear us play songs of the ancient past.
I also got to visit my mom, who was in Decatur Memorial Hospital. She's had MS for the past twenty-or-so years and over the past couple weeks had lost the use of her legs. They've never treated her MS particularly aggressively beforehand, as they've never had to, but they were gearing up for plasmaphoresis and aggressive drug therapy. However, she was in good spirits and I had a nice visit with her on Labor Day.
On the way back from Decatur to Bloomington, though, the vision in my left eye started getting blurry and, by the time I got to my hotel room, all I could see was fog out of it. I called my high-school friend, Tom Nielsen, a local ER doc and made a quick visit to him. He couldn't see anything in my eye, so he sent me up to Peoria to see a retina-specialist. The specialist performed an ultrasound scan on my eye, announced that I didn't have any retinal tearing and/or detachment, diagnosed a vitreous hemorrhage, and told me to find a local retina specialist when I got back to Portland. I left the next day, made an appointment for an exam on Thursday while sitting at O'Hare airport and got home Tuesday evening.
On Wednesday, I spend half the day at work, another part at my optometrist's office picking up a new pair of sunglasses and talking about the incident, and the rest of the day at The Vault Studio, doing vocal retakes for the This, Not This! EP. We're almost done, with only about four additional parts to track. After that, we can get down to the final mixes.
Finally, on Thursday, I saw the retina specialist who looked at my eye, couldn't see any tears or detachment, and used a laser to tack-weld my retina behind the place where the vitreous was pulling on it. It won't prevent future hemorrhages, but it might prevent tearing or detachment. Now all I have to do is to wait for four-to-six weeks while the blood clears from my left eye and I might be able to see out of it again.
Up for next week? I record a local hypnotherapist on Wednesday for a therapy CD. Next Thursday evening is (maybe) the final tracking session for the This Not This! EP. So this weekend, I get to clean up the studio. And, I've promised Dave a poster for the This, Not This! first anniversary show on the 30'th at Macadam's. The fun never stops...