Losing Well Part 16

Continuation of my series, Losing Well. Part 1 can be found here.


December 2015
2008 was a good year but not one I documented all that well. I was promoted to Vice President at the bank. I moved into international project management with teams in India, Canada and Mexico.

I was also busy changing diapers and staying up late with a toddler. Lack of sleep seems to prevent the formation of memories. Work was sending me to Delaware a lot during this period. They also sent me to Ottawa in February. Brrr. 

We did take my son on his first airplane ride as well flew to San Fransisco. We rented a car and drove down the PCH.


12 December 2008
YAG surgery on Jan 7th scheduled for my left eye.


December 2015
2009 was the year my daughter was born. I was working from home at this point. My team was all over the world and I took calls at all times of the day and night. My time was consumed by work and running after the kids.

It was a tough time, stressful. A lot of work with little distraction. I gained a lot of weight when I started working from home. I was tired all the time.


April 4, 2009
Ten years ago I was diagnosed with RP. I was told I had ten years of vision. At the time I was an IT contractor renting a home in a small town. I drove an hour into the city every morning for work. I had a stay at home wife who wanted kids. And I was miserable.


Within months of finding out about RP, my wife left me, I had to stop driving, and move away from my friends in order to be closer to work. I’d almost everything I knew.


RP saved my life. With ten years of hindsight I can honestly say I’m glad I found out about RP that miserable day. None of what I have now would exist without the destruction the disease wrought. I still have that job and four years after my ex-wife left, I married a woman I’m much happier with. I own a nice home close to the center of the city and we have a fantastic two year old son with a baby on the way.

Ten years ago everyone kept saying that by losing my vision I would gain special insight. My special insight is that there is no special knowledge. All we have are choices. RP forced me to make choices I would have otherwise avoided. That’s the lesson. Either make choices now or be forced to. Choose wisely.


May 2009
And now I have a little girl!


6 July 2009
Today started out in the pre-dawn twilight since my daughter couldn't sleep. By eight, she and Kate were back asleep. Only now my son was wide awake and wanted to play. Skip forward a couple of hours and I got to go to bed.

So there I was in the blissful arms of REM sleep. My son went into his bedroom, grabbed his full size pillow and dragged it into the master. He then wielded the pillow like a hammer, hefted it over his head, and landed it directly on my head. Nap time over.

Skip ahead to bed time. My son went down later then normal, after nine,. My daughter was suffering from gas and remained fussy and awake. Just as we got her to sleep, my son started screaming bloody murder. So I opened his door and he's lying on his bed holding his diaper in his hands. Sure enough, he'd wet the bed. Sigh. I flip on the light and discover that he'd also taken a dump on the carpet.

Skip forward ten minutes and I'm rocking my daughter in my arms to keep her asleep as my son is helping make his bed by pulling up the corners Kate had just tucked in. While laughing. We were not so amused. My son took a small plastic ball and thew it in my direction. It hit my sleeping daughter on the head, waking her. She screamed, My son screamed. Then everyone went back to bed.


Part 17 can be found here.