Healing

Healing

    There are all sorts of healing, one being my own cautiousness in returning to the recreation center where my locker was broken in to (okay, it was a set of public lockers but I did have a lock on it) and I was suddenly minus all of my credit cards, identification, phone and later, car.  But by now over a week had passed and I was ready to not let my life be overtaken by such cautiousness, this after having thoroughly thought out how to take only the minimum amount of items with me to the center, a set of spare car keys (no fob), my driver's license and my rec center admission card.  Everyone was quite helpful (and sympathetic) there, even holding onto those few things I had brought while I took off for the pool; after all, I felt that I was getting a bit "soft" as my maintenance exercise shrank away to nil, all while I continued to feed calories into me as if I were still the exercise champ (which I never was but it sounds good).  So a jump in the pool, a refreshing return to "normal," and...my swim goggles break (the strap anyway, and this being the most recommended set of goggles on Amazon, a gift from my brother).  No big deal, the water was delightful and I could swim with my eyes open under the water, all with no burning sensation or feeling uncomfortable.  So off I went, my arms rejoicing as the memory fibers came back; out to one end then back, then out again and back.  It felt great, relaxing and letting my mind rest a bit and then I stopped to both catch my breath and to gaze at the beautiful sky.  But everything was hazy.  I brushed the water away from my eyes, then looked again this time at the bushes nearby.  Same thing.  It was as if an oily film had been placed on my eyes, and that's when I felt the burning.

   I got out, flushed my eyes with tap water (chlorinated but less so, I assumed) then headed home to flush my eyes with saline solution.  What had I done?  Were the gods or was fate telling me something?  Here's what the site EyeCareFun had to say: That stinging is your body’s signal that this substance is not good for you...Chlorine has been shown to effect proteins, and part of your eye’s protective tear film is made of protein.  The other parts are oils, water, and mucous.  What the chlorine ends up doing is stripping away this protective layer that normally keeps out foreign bacteria and lubricates your eye.  This makes your eyes dry and irritated and opens them up to possible infection.  You may also experience blurry vision from swelling of the cornea that results from getting chlorine in your eyes. Fortunately, the effect is temporary.  Once you’re out of the chlorinated water for a while, your eyes will produce more precorneal film.  They regain both moisture and protection from bacteria.  However, this doesn't mean that chlorine exposure has no lasting effects.  Long-term effects of chlorine in the eyes are still being studied and have not yet been determined.  Keep in mind that even if you don’t swim, many people’s eyes are already regularly exposed to small amounts of chlorine in tap water, and no long-term effects have been connected to this use.  

    Some lubricating drops later (which consisted mainly of polyethylene glycol which turns out to have some interesting uses beyond it capacity to bind with water and act as a lubricant; take this one example from Wikipedia: PEG has also been used to preserve objects that have been salvaged from underwater, as was the case with the warship Vasa in Stockholm, the Mary Rose in England, the Ma'agan Michael Ship in Israel, and artifacts from the Steamboat Arabia in Kansas City, Missouri.  It replaces water in wooden objects, making the wood dimensionally stable and preventing warping or shrinking of the wood when it dries...PEG has been used to preserve the painted colors on Terra-Cotta Warriors unearthed at a UNESCO World Heritage site in China.  These painted artifacts were created during the Qin Shi Huang Di dynasty (first emperor of China).  Within 15 seconds of the terra-cotta pieces being unearthed during excavations, the lacquer beneath the paint begins to curl after being exposed to the dry Xian air.  The paint would subsequently flake off in about four minutes.  The German Bavarian State Conservation Office developed a PEG preservative that when immediately applied to unearthed artifacts has aided in preserving the colors painted on the pieces of these clay soldiers...).  But none of this was the real point of what happened when I returned to the pool the next day (this time with a cheaper pair of Speedo goggles).

    With school now in session, the outdoor Olympic-sized pool at the rec center is populated with a scattering of us older folk, people mainly with the time to leisurely engage in such an activity, that is to exercise without having to rush back to work or to get home to the kids.  All of this gives one time to talk as well.  And so here I was, eyes feeling quite comfortable, and resting at the deep end of the pool.  The woman two lanes away (likely around my age and likely around my weight) was doing the same.  It never gets easier, she said.  I nodded and replied that no it didn't; just trying to maintain, I told her.  She nodded back; I just do my mile here, she said, even if it takes me awhile (this was double the distance that I usually do), it's only 34 times up and back.  Good for you, I told her.  Don't know why I used my inhaler today, she said (turns out she has asthma); I just stop and rest when I need to, she continued.  We kept swimming (me making excuses of why I wasn't swimming as much or as smoothly as she was) and then continued our chatting at the other end.  She was now five years free of breast cancer. 

    Another friend of ours, heavy smoker and full of spitfire stubbornness, is now likely in her final days say the Hospice nurses.  At 71 she seems a bit young but her lifestyle never changed...quality over quantity she would always tell us as she lit another one and poured herself a mixed drink.  I jumped back to my worried feelings when I thought that I may have done some permanent damage to my eyes.  What was I thinking.  Being robbed?  Feeling sorry for myself when others were overcoming much larger obstacles.  Yes, I couldn't stop my friend from smoking away, any more than I could talk my new-found friend from completing her regular mile swim.  But their resilience and love of life and living humbled me.  So many more people have far greater challenges, even the moms who do have to rush home to care for the kids (and are still trying to get a workout in), or the nurses doing full-time care for their patients, or innocent villagers dodging cluster bombs and starvation in Aleppo and other parts of the world.  For them, the healing would likely take a lot longer than my week of getting over being robbed.  For them, the healing might never come, the wounds always returning and seemingly having no end.  The chlorine may have clouded my vision but more importantly I had realized that my outlook was clouded as well.  The lubricant may have helped my vision return to normal, but my friends had done something even more valuable.  They had helped clear something deeper, something inside of me...and likely all without knowing anything had happened.