Last night, I was looking for someone in an unspecified South American country. This took place in a dream, by the way. A guy, whom I somehow knew was the leader of some notorious gang or cartel, told me that he would lead me to the person I was looking for. Although I was aware that he would probably try to kill me, I hoped to get the upper hand on him. I spent what seemed to be hours navigating very detailed, bizarre locations in this dream South American country; one of those experiences that make you wonder if through dreaming one accesses some parallel realm. Anyway, the dream ended without a resolution, because my phone alarm sounded. Six in the morning, time to go to work.

It’s so disturbing to dream for hours, looking at strange locations through a good set of eyes, only to wake up and find my right eye screwed up. As I mentioned in previous posts, I few days ago I suffered a retinal tear that sent me to the ER, and that they got lasered shortly after. I’m now supposedly recovering from the surgery. My vision, however, is quite diminished: a frayed lock of fibers keeps dancing in front of my vision, and the rest is dotted with the vitreous gel equivalent of dust motes. Imagine having a lock of hair trapped inside your eyeball and you being unable to do anything about it but shift your gaze around to try to keep it at the edges of your vision. I have some level of OCD, so this garbage is driving me nuts. I’m tempted to just wear an eyepatch. I suspect that such floaters don’t casually go away even after weeks or months, and that now I’ll be forced to tolerate this disruption permanently.

On top of that, I spoke with my general practitioner on the phone to tell him that for what seems to be months, I haven’t felt right in the head: I’m confused often, I make bizarre errors at work, sometimes I confuse the order of letters as I’m writing (even though I’m not dyslexic), and from time to time I feel pressure in the area of my right eye and temple. My right eye, by the way, is the one that has suffered a torn retina, and I can’t tell if that was a coincidence. I was told that my confusion and such would pass after my regrettable episode of hemiplegic migraine, but it hasn’t been the case. To be honest, though, I can’t be sure for how long I’ve been suffering these symptoms: these last five or six months have been an utter nightmare at work, as I was tasked with coordinating the replacement of about 940 printers, which forced me to endure high levels of stress weekly. I haven’t been fully myself for a long time.

In general, I feel like I’m falling apart. My general practitioner told me that he would put me in contact with some neurologist, and from there, perhaps I’ll get an MRI done to discard possible faulty blood vessels, or brain damage. Neither of them would surprise me.

Anyway, this afternoon I hope to start ordering my notes for the next chapter of my ongoing novel. Thankfully, my artistic endeavors make me feel like I’m progressing somewhere other than the grave.