{"id":37515,"date":"2026-07-28T12:22:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37515"},"modified":"2026-07-28T12:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:26:10","slug":"not-exactly-a-sight-for-sore-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37515","title":{"rendered":"Not Exactly a Sight for Sore Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"IMG_9563\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/halfmind\/55426731470\/in\/datetaken-public\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55426731470_a2a05d9612_m.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_9563\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a>Had my annual eye exam today. My pupils are still dilated, so the home office window blinds are down and I&#8217;m typing in semi-darkness. The optometrist says my cataracts are a three on a scale of five, but since my corrected vision is still 20\/25 I don&#8217;t meet the Medicare threshold for surgery (which is 20\/40, by the way). That&#8217;s just fine with me.<\/p>\n<p>I went in for a six-month dermatology exam last week. They discovered what appeared to be two basal cell skin cancers, one on my left earlobe and one on my right temple. The biopsies were positive and now I&#8217;m waiting on a date for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mohs_surgery\">Mohs surgery<\/a><\/strong> to remove them.<\/p>\n<p>I was unhappy with the Mohs specialist who did my last procedure. Why? Because the spot on my earlobe isn&#8217;t new at all, but a bit of skin cancer left behind from that earlier surgery. I suspected that was the case, because the earlobe stayed tender and never quite healed afterward. This time I asked for a referral to another Mohs specialist, one who has worked on me before and in whom I have more confidence. With luck, I&#8217;ll still have an earlobe afterward.<\/p>\n<p>Just coincidentally, Donna&#8217;s out for her annual eye exam today (we see different optometrists for some reason, don&#8217;t ask me why). She had cataracts removed three years back and is doing fine, and apart from Mohs surgery to remove a basal cell carcinoma from her nose four years ago has been free of skin cancer. Not me: I&#8217;ve been getting them since 1997, and by now have had nearly two dozen removed, all from my face. Good thing my birthday falls on Halloween, because I&#8217;m looking more and more the part.<\/p>\n<p>My blogging output has decreased of late. Not entirely sure what&#8217;s up with that. Maybe I&#8217;ll get my mojo back. Maybe not. Perhaps it&#8217;s time to start thinking about my little blog&#8217;s future. Any suggestions, dear readers? Apart from the obviously insulting ones, that is.<\/p>\n<p>Stay fresh, cheese bags!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps it&#8217;s time to start thinking about my little blog&#8217;s future. Any suggestions, dear readers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[636,1688,4915],"class_list":["post-37515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-blogging","tag-dermatology","tag-optometry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37515"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37517,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37515\/revisions\/37517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}