Progress, I think

Yesterday at noontime I had the scheduled meeting with my French ophtalmologist over in Montrichard, 10 miles downriver from Saint-Aignan. It went well from most points of view. Walt and Tasha drove me over there just in case the doctor told me I needed a driver to take me back home (dilated eyes and all...).

The doctor was genuinely shocked when he examined my eyes by shining some kind of bright light into my eyeballs. He said that a "secondary cataract" had formed in my left eye (which before the cataract surgery had always been my strong eye; my right eye had always been blurry, since childhood). A secondary cataract was also starting to form in my right eyeball, he said. Both of the secondary cataracts needed to be removed he said.

A secondary cataract is like a cloud or veil over the artificial lens implant that needs to be removed. That veil over the implant that he had put in my eyeball two years ago to replace the natural lens, which was removed. He said the removal of the secondary cataract(s) would be done later, using a laser. The laser work has been scheduled for September 28 up in Blois, he said. You will need somebody to drive you home from Blois, he added. Blois is 25 or 30 miles north of Saint-Aignan, on the Loire River.

I had suspected that the laser treatment would be done in Blois,if at all, and not in Montrichard, which is a village more than a town. Blois is what I'd call  a big town, and it has a big hospital. Driving there and back is less convenient for us, but not prohibitively so. (I happen to know that local taxi companies charge 150 euros round trip to take me from our house to Blois and back. Given those prices, Walt will just have to do the driving again.

I'll have one more appointment with the doctor in Montrichard in October as a follow-up to all of the above.

The main thing about all this is that I can stop worrying, for now, that my eyesight may never be right again. The doctor says it will. Time will tell. Maybe I can relax again, at least until further developments reveal themselves.

  

It'about time

I've been silent for at least a couple of weeks. I'm healing. I take my bandages off pretty much every other day. I  see that some of the wounds are healing faster than others. Some are still bleeeding a little bit and need bandages still. 

Meanwhile, my appointment with the eye doctor is scheduled for a week from tomorrow at noontime. I hope for a big improvement in my eyesight, or at least some good advice about what the next steps will be to give me a complete recovery.

I'll try not to remain silent for so long next time.

The weather here has been very pleasant for a couple of weeks now. I haven't been able to take advantage of it. Weve had small amounts of rain from time to time, but not nearly enough yet. High temperatures have been in the low to middle 70s ºF.

Status

It was three weeks ago when I fell as I was going upstairs to the loft and injured myself. I'm healing but still sporting various types of bandages. It's a long, slow process. I had three weeks of daily and then every-other day visits from local nurses.

It was three months ago that I called my ophthalmologist's office in Blois to request a rendez-vous with him. The earliest appointment I could get was in October. After more phone calls, I finally ended up with an appointment scheduled for September 9. That's just two weeks from now. I'm optimistic that I'll be able to see better afterward. That will probably require new glasses. Getting those will take 10 to 12 days or more.

What a summer it has been! Today is the first day since mid-May that we can enjoy "normal" temperatures in the mid-70s ºF and feel hopeful that we won't have another heat wave in 2026. Three was plenty.  Who knows what's normal these days?

Burned by the sun

 Look at what our current heat wave is doing to our long, tall, wide hedge. This is our back yard and it gets full sun in the afternoon. The leaves on the hedge are very sun-burned. We are hoping they will come back when and if we go back into a rainy spell.  Why don't we water it? It's because the hot dry weather we've had for months now is affecting the whole country. Farmers are plowing their crops under because the hot sun has killed just about everything. Big trees and grape vines around here are surviving, but that's about all. They are plants with very deep roots.

This photo shows another section of the hedge that is faring better, even though it is south-facing. The photo is from a few weeks ago. 

Apologies

I'm sorry to have disappeared from the blog. There's a lot going on here, involving doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. A few days ago,I fell as I was going up the stairs last Friday after. My injuries needed medical attention. I called in a nurse who practices in our village and she came to the house to help. She examined my wounds, disinfected everything, and applied bandages better than Walt and I could do. This week she's coming back every day to change the bandages and see if the wounds are healing properly.

Yesterday I went to see my primary care doctor. He did some paperwork that makes the cost the care I need will be covered by insurance.

Meanwhile, it is still very hot here. High temperatures are in the mid- to high 90s in ºF.

More later, as things evolve. I will recover.

PS: no bones were broken.

 

S.O.S.

Accuweather forecasts that our week will be a hot one. 

The high temperature on Wednesday is supposed to hit 106 ºF. Au secours!

 

 

Still Needing Rain (2)

 The weather here has been very pleasant this week, with high temps in the mid 80s ºF. Some mornings and nights have felt downright chilly. Now the weather people are predicting rain for Saturday and Sunday, with thunder and lightning on Sunday. We need the rain.

We've been sleeping up in the loft, which can get boiling hot by late afternoon, despite the 8 inches of insulation that  we put in when we had the loft converted to living space back in 2010. I hope we don't have to sleep downstairs again next week.

That's because the weather services and sites are predicting another heat wave for us, starting Monday. They don't yet say how long it's going to last.

Down in the Bordeaux area, there have been two big forest fires this week. One of them is still burning in a place called Cap Ferret (pop. 8,000), just south of the city. Cap means "cape". It's a busy resort town. They say 30,000 people have been evacuated from the area, most of them tourists. Houses are already burning.

Still needing rain

Just when we had almost got used to early morning temps of about 80 F, now we have to get used to morning temps of about 60 F. That feels pretty chilly, as I can attest after this morning's 7 a.m. walk with Tasha...with me in long pants and a fleece jacket 

This is  first day in a month or more when I haven't had to throw open all our windows and doors at 5 a.m. to let in some relatively cool outdoor air. Today's high is supposed to be between  80 and 82 F. We've slept up in the loft now for three or four nights in a row.

Have I ever mentioned that the AC has gone out in both of our cars? In the Peugeot, it stopped working years ago, but it never mattered because we never drive it far or at high speeds. Mother Nature's AC has always been adequate. — but maybe not any more. In the Citroën, a slightly newer car, the AC probably needs maintenance in the form of a recharge of  the refrigerant fluid. The last time I asked my mechanic about it, he said he can't even get refrigerant any more. That was maybe 6 months ago. I bet refrigerant is even harder to come by now.

Plus ça change...

 ...plus nous sommes heureux et soulagés. We were able to sleep in the loft last night. It was  what I'd call very warm, but not hot up there.

Today's high temperature in the Saint-Aignan area will be about 85ºF, the forecasters say. We say yay! We're still waiting for some rain, and some is predicted to fall during the day. Fingers crossed.

Despondent

Despondent is the word that best describes my mood today. Blame my eyes (I'm half blind). Add in the extreme hot weather and the forest fires burning all around France.

This morning the Forêt de Fontainebleau, just a few miles south of Paris, is burning.  It's unbelievable.

There's talk  of a respite this week. We should get some rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday. I hope the weather forecasts are accurate this time. 

Mon lit pour l'été 2026

I've spent a lot of the summer sleeping on this sofa in our living room. I mean sleeping overnight, not just napping. It's too hot to sleep upstairs in the loft, where we have a king-size bed and where we sleep when the weather isn't so hot. The living room sofa is comfortable, and behind and above it is a big north-facing window I can open to let in some fresh, cool air overnight and early in the morning.

The high temperature in Saint-Aignan today is forecast to be 104ºF (that's 40º C.). The bad news is that the weatherman on TéléMatin says today that we're going to have another 7 to 10 days of extreme heat before the heat wave breaks up  and temperatures start to fall.

Yikes

The cold water coming out of our faucets here in Saint-Aignan has a temperature of 83.6ºF. That's warm enough to take a comfortable shower in.

We are back to sleeping on the sofa in the living room (me) and the bed in the guest room (W.) The loft overhead, our family room, is an oven.

 The temperature outside  at  6 p.m. hit 102ºF a couple of days ago. Today's forecast: 95 to 98 ºF. It's about 93ºF up in the loft now (5:30 p.m.).

My eyesight adventures

I went to see my médecin traitant (GP or Primary Care physician) a few days ago. I had a  lot of things to talk to him about, most notably my eyes and eyesight. I've been having vision problems for at least the past six months. I had cataract surgery two years ago. At first, I was thrilled with the result, which was much clearer vision, especially in my left eye, which has always been much stronger than my right eye. At the time, I was disappointed that the vision  in my right eye — the weak one — was not improved much, if  at all, after the cataract surgery.

When the surgery was finished in 2024 (two sessions, one for each eye, in June and then in September that year) the ophthalmologist wrote me a new prescription for my eyeglasses. I got that filled, and all went pretty well for about a year. The vision in my right eye was still fuzzy, but the new lenses in my glasses seemed to correct my vision overall. I was happy.

Things have changed in 2026. My left eye, formerly the strong one, has been in decline for several  months. I can't remember exactly when it started. When I first noticed the decline, it didn't alarm me too much, because I could still function. 

During the session when the eye doctor gave me the new prescription for glasses, he told me that in two years' time, I would need to call his office and make a follow-up appointment so that he could examine my eyes to see if all was going well. If I noticed a decline in my overall vision, I should let him know. He said that his examination would show him if one of my eyes, or maybe both, might need an adjustment that would come in the form of a laser operation to return my eyesight to its earlier improved vision (after the cataract operations).

When I realized two or three months ago that vision through my formerly healthy left eye was in a tailspin and getting a little fuzzier every day, I called the ophthalmology clinic up at the hospital in Blois and asked for an appointment with the doctor who had performed the cataract surgery. The woman who answered my call said she couldn't give me an appointment earlier than October, and I would need to call back in July to make the October appointment.

So I called back a few days ago and was told that the doctor could see me on September 9.  I tried to explain to the woman on the phone that I really needed an appointment in July or August, she interrupted me and said she couldn't help me. It was Sept. 9 or nothing,, she said, adding that my doctor was going to be on vacation for all of the month of August, and she had no July appointments left to give out. I accepted the September appointment.

Meanwhile, I am having big problems with my close-up vision. My right eye seems clearer and crisper than my left eye, which is strange. The left eye has always been the clear-vision one. Now I have a hard time reading text displayed on my laptop, as well as with the text in the dictionaries and cookbooks I look things up in nearly every day at one point or another. My long-distance vision is fine. I can see to walk around the house and yard, to drive my car (I don't go fast or far), and to watch television.

You might have noticed that some of my recent blog posts come up in a larger font than the one I used to use. That makes it easier for me when it comes to typing and proofreading text for my blog posts. However, it doesn't help when it comes to posting photos. That requires editing the computer code that Blogger gives me to do the formatting. I haven't yet figured out how to enlarge that nerdy text.

 So there you have it. I'm sort of half blind for the moment. It doesn't help that I have pollen allergies that also affect my eyesight. Maybe in the autumn things will be better. Meanwhile, don't expect to see daily posts on my blog . But don't forget me. I'll still post once in a while using the larger font. I'll keep you posted if there's any news... 

Pas de nouvelles, bonnes nouvelles

No news is good news. I'm in that mode. We're having beautiful, cool mornings right now, so we are  taking advantage of them by doing some yard work (Walt) and some cooking (Ken),which is mostly salads and sandwiches to eat in the afternoon. Plus some ice cream.

Have you heard about the riots in Paris when the LIDL grocery store chain announced it had ordered thousands of portable AC units and electric fans from China and was selling them at a discount. The LIDL stores were overwhelmed by big crowds of bargain-chasers. The latest twist this story takes in that people were buying air-conditioners and  electric fans at deep discounts and promptly listing them on on-line sales sites (the best known of which is called Le Bon Coin) at three or four times what they had paid for them at LIDL.

Whew!

We were finally able to sleep upstairs in the loft last night. It was warm up there, but it wasn't an oven the way it had been for a week or more. Now I'm shivering because it feels cold in the house.

After seven days of high temps over 98º, this morning it's below 70º outside and in the greenhouse. It's still close to 80º up in the loft.The sun is still shining and Accuweather predicts highs between 86º and 93º for the next seven days. That's still hot in my book.

Thunder and lightning, wind and rain

I woke up this morning to strong winds and storm clouds. That was after going to bed (going to sofa?) last night during a thunderstorm. We are still under a weather warning for extremely high temperatures, but I think I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I took the photo above very early this morning from our north-facing living room window. You can't see the wind, of course, but you can almost see the trees swaying.

Weeks to come

We are facing one more week of high temperatures in the 90s Fahrenheit, including three more days of temperatures over 100.Then we'll get a week with highs in the 80s. And finally, a week with highs in the 70s, in early July.

Making do

Last night I had the guest bedroom and Walt tried to sleep on the sofa in the living room. It was hot when I went to bed, but sometime before midnight I threw the windows open and there was some movement of air, so I was able to sleep. Walt says the sofa is too soft for good sleeping, and he ended up going back upstairs for a while. We have a big fan up there. He turned that on and opened some windows, but he said he was still uncomfortably warm.

Downstairs in the guest room, I got about four hours of sleep. Then I got up at 4:30 to let Tasha to do her business and then to feed her. Walt heard me and the dog, so he came downstairs to see what we were doing. She's fed, I told him. And I said he should go lie down on the guestroom bed, close to a big window that was wide open. There was some movement of air from the back yard, but you could hardly call it a breeze. Anyway, he got two or three hours of shut-eye. I finished opening windows all around the house and took a little snooze on the living room sofa.

This morning Walt went down to the garage and succeeded in locating an air mattress we used to use on camping trips in California. We pumped it up and it seems to holds air. I hope Walt will be able to sleep on it tonight. The bad news is that today and tonight are supposed to be even hotter than yesterday and last night. It's already getting warm and muggy this morning.

Our temperatures this week...

...in degrees Fahrenheit. These are Accuweather predictions

for Saint-Aignan from June 22 to June 28, 2010.

Sunday - 104º

Monday - 110º

Tuesday - 109º

Wednesday - 110º 

Thursday - 108º

Friday - 99º

Saturday - 93º

Yikes!

Yesterday afternoon at about five o'clock I went out to take a short walk with Tasha. We walked out through the greenhouse, which felt like we we were walking through an oven. I looked at the thermometer in there, and it showed the temperature as 50ºC. That's 122ºF. The two skylight windows in the greenhouse were wide open, as was the doorway that leads out into the back yard.