You don't know what you've got til it's gone--or starting to go.

When the Rainbow is Enough

It started out as a pretty ordinary Wednesday’s work of putting together the week’s library payroll and bill paying. There were two unexpected hiccups during the morning. First, the auditor needed yet another piece of data arranged just so for the annual state audit. I’ve lost track of how many times over the past few weeks that I’ve submitted assorted documents to the auditor, hoping that I had at last supplied everything in the desired format, always in vain.

Second, when I bicycled downtown to the Mayor’s office I had an unpleasant surprise. Every check I write for the library has to be co-signed by the Mayor, his secretary, or the city treasurer. It’s another imposition by accountants, members of a profession that at times seems to thrive by imposing chores on others who already have enough to do. This Wednesday the three authorized signers all proved absent from City Hall.

Usually when this happens I cycle a few blocks to the house of the part-time treasurer, a retired gentleman who can normally be found at home when he isn’t at City Hall. This time he wasn’t there either. So I bicycled back to City Hall. There were still no eligible check signers there, but I was now able to learn that the Mayor and secretary were in a meeting at the main fire station. I rode there and was able, at the cost of having to embarrass myself by interrupting the meeting, to get the secretary to sign the payroll.

Now I was finally able to return to work, still annoyed at having to chase all over town just to get a few checks signed. Soon I was too busy distributing paychecks, paying bills, and taking care of routine paperwork to hold onto that minor annoyance. Overall the day had been going fairly well. Any stress brought on by the earlier impositions soon passed.

A little before noon, just as I was finishing up the bill paying, something went haywire with the vision in my left eye. It was hard to describe—a kind of shimmering or swirling to the left of my field of vision. Though it affected only the left eye, that eye was the one I use for up-close vision with my bifocal contact lens prescription. I could hardly see to work.

For years now eye doctors have told me that my extreme astigmatism puts me at elevated risk for a detached retina. As my never-good-in-the-first-place vision has deteriorated with middle age, I have had increasing trouble with floaters and spots. My concerns over my vision were great enough last year that I went to see an out-of-town retina specialist. He gave me a more or less clean bill of health. Now something was definitely very wrong. Was my left retina detaching?

I called the eye doctor’s office and told them what was wrong. They told me to come right on over. I explained to the staff what was up and took off. Before I went our janitor, Julie, said that what I had sounded to her like an “ocular migraine.” She had had them before, and had found that they were nothing to worry about. I’d never heard of such a thing. It was good to know as I left the office that there was a possible alternative to the dreaded detached retina hypothesis.

The eye doctor’s office is only a short walk from the library. My vision was still good enough that I could make the walk safely. The episode actually seemed to be fading by the time I got there.

Over the next hour my eyes were dilated, flashed, and probed six ways from Sunday. The doctor asked early on whether I had a headache. I told him no. By the time he and his technicians were done with me, this was no longer the case!

Once again my retina got a clean bill of health. It had indeed been an ocular migraine. It seems that sometimes the weird visual symptoms that warn of an impending migraine can strike without ever developing into an actual migraine headache. I did not have an eye problem, I had a minor neurological issue. The doctor assured me that many people, including himself, had occasional ocular migraine episodes without experiencing any more serious problems. If it kept happening I might have an MD check my blood pressure. Otherwise there was nothing that he needed to treat.

I thanked him—the prompt work-in on short notice was very helpful—paid my bill, and went back to work. With my eyes still temporarily shot from dilation, I could accomplish nothing useful there. I let everybody know how the eye doctor visit had turned out, then headed home for the day. At home I had lunch and took a nap.

By early evening I could see normally again and had lost the headache. This meant that I could go to the six o’clock Wednesday evening service at church like usual. When a friend asked how I was doing after the service, I told her “Great! I found out today that I’m not going blind!” Then I explained what that meant. She was happy for me.

Usually on Wednesday evening after church I stay for a time to meet with a prayer partner. This evening my partner had family matters to take care of and could not meet. I chatted with others for a bit and then stepped outside to go home. That was when I had my second stunning visual experience of the day.

Near the motel across the highway from the church (Our church is located in something of a low-rent part of town) stood a stand of pines. A little rain shower had just passed. The evening sun shining through the clouds had turned the pines a beautiful golden color. Above the golden pines stretched a narrow band of clear blue sky. Above that was a larger area of mingled deep blue and purple clouds. Above that the clouds turned fleecy, and as golden as the pines. And slashing down to one side of it all ran the most striking rainbow that I’ve seen in many years.

My imperfect color vision means that I have never seen the full spectrum of a rainbow. At that moment I did not care. Instead I had an overwhelming sense of how precious sight, even imperfect sight, really is. I had an equally vivid sense of thankfulness toward God for allowing me to have my sight. Every year in which I can still see is a gift to treasure.

One of the things one learns as one matures is the folly of “chasing rainbows” in the figurative sense. I’ve certainly learned my own lesson in that respect. But just being able to see the rainbow itself—even part of it—is a reason to be glad.

I had something similar happen one time -- doctor said it was an ocular migraine.

My wife suffers from them constantly. My eyesight is terrible, but it's not causing me pain. I'm glad everything worked out okay, Daphne.