Where are those spectacles? I carried them with me for nearly two weeks. Kept them in my jacket pocket, the right pocket all this time. Now that I need them, they’re gone.

Not on the dining room table, Not on the coffee table in the living room, either. Let me check both bathrooms. No. Not in either one. The bedroom? Looked at every bureau top and the floor beneath them.

No sign of the pair of glasses I need — not to drive or to even read  — but to turn in to the Veterans’ Adminstration eye clinic at the Coatesville (PA) Medical Center. I had already made the appoinment. It’s a 25-mile trip. Have to be there at 8:45 a.m. Gave myself an hour to drive, and now I’ve already eaten into 15 minutes of that time, looking for a pair of glasses that were in my jacket pocket ever since Jan. 13, 2010, 15 days ago.

That was the date Dr. Marc D. Myers, O.D., FAAO, saw me, and declared an “emergency,” pulling out all stops to get me to an eye surgeon at the Philadelphia VA Hospital to save the vision in my left eye. I had called the senior staff optometrist just the day before and he cleared his schedule to see me. Luckily, his quick action two weeks earlier had alerted the team of physicians in center city to begin treating the eye for a detached retina and keep my vision.

But, who knew that I had anything wrong with the eye back then, save for those black squiggly lines, one large one that seemed to block a lot of my sight? I figured it would eventually go away. A main reason for “seeing” Dr. Myers was to get a replacement pair of glasses because the stem on my one and only VA-issued set had broken. I refused to try to tape it again. When I used tape another time, it never stayed in place, and I think it caused more harm to my vision, as I strained to look through lenses that crookedly laid across the bridge of my nose. Everything was off. Could not read, watch television, or even type with any comfort.

I forgot all about the broken specs when learning of the detached retina through Dr. Myers. The sooner you get professional help, the better the chances you have of getting proper treatment, I learned. Waiting too long, could lead to blindness.

See Part II at

Letting Go Requires Faith and Hope