Well this has been a hectic week, especially for Pearl.  She has been found to have glaucoma in her left eye which was the cause of her "blurry" vision.  She found that when she put her hand over her left eye she could see much better....that happens for me when I cover my right eye!
Anyhow, she has been to the eye doctor twice, using (or missing) eye drops 3-4 x/day but it was found that the pressure was not coming down sufficiently.  Eye docs like to see it around 12 and hers started in the 40's, went down to 24 and then to 20 but stayed there.  The recommendation was for laser (not lasik) surgery to open a drain hole in the eye and that was done on Friday, 7/26. It was a simple procedure, done in the Wheaton Eye Clinics massive offices, and she was checked and released after an hour.  On the way home she even felt good enough to eat out even though her intestines give her problems.  She had to "run" to the bathroom and I took her to show her where it was.  We were done, hands washed and dried, I opened the bathroom door to leave and she turned and headed into the handicapped stall.  I figured she had to "go" again so I left her with the walker nearby and went back to our table.  Minutes went by and she finally came out, plopping into her chair she exclaimed, "I was sooo afraid!  I couldn't find the way out of the bathroom!" I thought I'd die in there!"  I said "Didn't you see me go out the door?"  "NO!", she said "I'm so afraid of everything, I don't know what to do!"  We all chuckled and went on eating........then I started to think, maybe she thought she was leaving the bathroom when she went into the handicap stall!  I started to picture her going in circles looking for the way out..... is it mean that it makes me smile?  Understand that the bathroom in this restaurant is so small, two people at the sink makes it crowded.
Back on track.....the morning after there is a voicemail from 7:20am with a tiny miserable voice saying how horrible she feels. Her eye is so painful that it goes up her head and down her chin, she didn't sleep all night.  I hear her fumbling to hang up the phone.  When I try to call her the phone rings 10 times and then her machine says "Memory is full".  She has never erased her messages!   I try 3 more times and then finally she picks up.  "Oh I feel awful....I called the clinic to ask if I could take a Tylenol but the girl said no, because it would interfere with the laser."  I KNOW that can't be true so I tell her that I will call them,  "Oh no, they aren't open today..."  I say that's fine, they will have an answering service, which they do and the nurse calls me right back.  When I tell her what is going on she says they can see her at 10:15am......it is now 9:10am.  I say she will be there and then go to wake up Rick who can easily be out the door way before me! 
So they get to the clinic and her eye pressure is now in the 40's, something has plugged the newly formed drainage hole.  The glaucoma specialist is not there and the doc brings in 2 or 3 more docs to confer and none of them want to touch her eye.....the laser is a specialty treatment.  So now Rick and Pearl have to travel to a satellite clinic where there IS a glaucoma specialist who tried another, more powerful laser with no luck.  Now her pressure was up to 56!  They sent her to the hospital to have a surgical procedure emergently to make a larger opening and drain the fluid.  It is now 2pm, they expect it to happen at 4pm and luckily Pearl had not eaten all day as she will be put under.  She doesn't go in until 5:30 though and I get a call from Rick at 6pm saying the nurses say she will be admitted.  Good! I think!  However, the doc says she can go home as she is "so perky and active".  Sometimes it doesn't pay to pretend to be something you aren't at the moment!  Especially since we have to have her back at the clinic at 9am Sunday morning!