Geezer Spends $40 Loses New Computer

The other night with a loud pop much like the adolescents next door setting off a firecracker at midnight four days after the Fourth of July and with the acrid odor of burned electronics not much at all like scorched clam chowder forgotten on the stove with the burner on high but similarly unpleasant the home desktop PC suddenly and unexpectedly powered down and died. Sensing fortuitous opportunity, the geezer grabbed up the Sunday ad from BestBuy to check current prices on the latest greatest killer PC’s. Hmm, not all that much! Pretty cheap, actually. Ah, but the ol’ home PC had been such a faithful workhorse for so many years. So, the geezer unhooked the gazillion wires and cables, opened up the case, and had a look. Nope, no visible scorch marks. Ehhhhhhhyeaaah, probably power supply, and those were pretty cheap, he recalled, notwithstanding a recent computer magazine article exhorting readers that a new PC was a better choice than a new power supply. But, on the other hand, no telling what else got jolted into electronic oblivion when the power supply fried itself. Geezer decides to put off the decision and try to get some actual work done at the office for a couple days where, due to circumstances both within and without his control, he has fallen precariously behind in discharging duties and promises to clients who still love him, anyway but, he knows, there’s a limit to everything, including patience and loyalty, and he’s getting damned close to finding it. By week’s end, due to further circumstances both within and without his control, but not due to spending time trying fix a computer, he’s no nearer caught up than he was the same time a week earlier. Maybe he’ll have better luck with the power supply although, he knows, if he’s due for a rare dose of good luck he should probably buy a lottery ticket instead of a power supply. He thinks about that and wonders, if he really thought hard, whether he’d be able to recall when it was that the first sign of dementia manifested itself, and just what it was. Maybe this was it, he thought, hopefully, knowing full well it was wishful thinking.

Anyhow, geezer buys $40 power supply at friendly local computer store, slaps it in after supper and voila, good as new. Well, not quite. The CPU fan is going to be the next thing to go, and the knowledgeable young tech fellow at the friendly local computer store shook his head at the inquiry about replacing it. “Not gonna find one to fit that old CPU,” he pronounced without hesitation. “What about duct tape?” asked the geezer. The kid had no answer.

Quantum Mechanics

I love this stuff. :wizard:

Retina Surgery

I forgot to mention my retina saga. On Sunday July 8 I had some psychedelic light streaks back and forth along top and bottom of visual periphery. A half hour later I had a black streak surrounded by distortion on the right side, and decided it was ER time. At the ER some purported doctor looked through an undilated pupil and said there wasn’t anything to do unless and until the retina actually detached, which he said hadn’t happened. The discharge instructions said I should see an ophthalmologist the next day. On the way home, looking at the sky through the windshield (Becky driving) it looked like the sky was filled with a swarm of gnats. These were, however, tiny black dots which had filled my eyeball.

Arriving home, decided to call Darrel Smith, our long-time optometrist. He wasn’t there, but returned my call a few hours later. He said there were some things that ought to get immediate treatment even if the retina was not detached. We met him at the office at 9:00 p.m. and he dilated the eye. As he was peering in, his associate Curtis Anderson came in. So I got examined by both. Darrel didn’t see anything, Curtis thought there might be something at the bottom of retina, maybe a tear, maybe not. They both decided it wasn’t an emergency.

The next day Curtis got me an appointment for Thursday with a retinal specialist in Topeka. Nevertheless, I went ahead and got examined by local O.D. Lynn O’Neill, whom I’d consulted many years ago when floaters first appeared. He dilated the eye and said yes, it looked like a retinal tear and he could “fix it” in about five minutes with laser. I declined his offer, preferring to wait for retinal specialist.

Thursday July 12 retinal specialist Blake Cooper did laser surgery to repair the tear. On conclusion, he announced the “bad news”: no reading for at least a week. Well, my time is primarily spent either reading words on paper or on a monitor. I started immediately having withdrawal symptoms on account of not being able to use a computer.

Saturday following the surgery I could see a little area at top of vision that darkened and lightened with heartbeat – like visual throbbing. I called Cooper’s office and got on call doc who said it was probably normal following laser surgery. Sunday evening that was gone and in it’s place was a bundle of crap that looked like a tangled bunch of black thread. The ends hanging down from top of vision would wave back and forth as I moved eyeball back and forth. Concerned about a ruptured blood vessel, I planned to call Cooper’s office first thing Monday morning.

Monday, Becky and I got up, had breakfast, and both fell asleep in our respective recliners, not waking up until 2:00 that afternoon. While pondering this excessive sleep (we had both gone to bed before midnight), I called Cooper’s office and got appointment the next day, at their office in Shawnee Mission.

Tuesday, July 17, Cooper dilated the eye and peered in, prounounced it looked good and I could start reading Friday. The tangle of black thread was, in his opinion, blood that settled to bottom of eyeball (things are actually upside down and reversed from what you see, so stuff I saw at the top of visual area was actually at bottom of eyeball).

So, Friday, July 20 it was back to work and back to computer. No new incidents, except Friday night I bent over to pick up something from the floor and a yellow streak started to appear on the right side. I immediately stood up and it immediately went away.

As explained to me, the clear vitreous fluid in eyeball is in a sack attached to retina and it detaches from retina with age. Sometimes it detaches “violently” and tears the retina or, in worst case scenarious, pulls some or all the the retina right off the back of the eyeball. The laser surgery I had was done to seal up the torn area so additional fluid wouldn’t leak in behind the retina which could eventually cause detachment. I gather over the next six months the rest of the vitreous will detach from retina, hopefully without causing any more tears or a retinal detachment.

They tell me such of the crap in my eyeball that’s blood will eventually go away; such of the crap that’s floaters won’t. The swarm of gnats has gotten somewhat better already. There are a couple of humungous floaters now, that frequently blur the central area of vision in right eye. I’m slowly acclimating to them, as I already have to the various other floaters in both eyes.