After over a year of lockdowns, mask-wearing, and separations from family, after months of email negotiations and phone-tree modifications, everyone planned to get together for a few weeks in the Summer of 2021 on Vancouver Island.

As is often the case in life, everything went for a dumpster dive moments before people started arriving when the retina of my right eye detached and I lost ½ the vision in that eye. The Eye of Odin. The Eye of Ra. The Eye of the Storm.

I was almost ready for the round of visits. The summer was already hot for Vancouver Island so I had installed shades on the south side of the house and ordered an air conditioner which was delivered literally as Susan and I were walking out the door. We arrived for treatment in Vancouver just as everyone was learning a new climate term: heat-dome. Isn’t it Ironic?

Over the course of the next two weeks, my eye was examined and treated in an office, a clinic, and then with surgery by two surgeons with a team of surgical support staff. I was awake, floating in a Lake of Placid, a place that I had been to before. My eye was drained of fluid, by some sort of super-science, micro-sized, remote-controlled gadget. There were two surgeons talking about everything that they saw and were doing inside my eyeball through needles inserted into said eyeball when I wasn’t looking! You gotta love this when it happens! Fear is the Mindkiller!

Luckily the Vancouver committee for family chaos was on Sandy Island enjoying a small bit of island paradise that was a childhood stomping ground; a place of relative safety and freedom to explore; and as a result, Susan and I had a free, quiet, place to stay in Vancouver, and recover from the medical trauma of the day. My eye was repaired by perhaps, all told, medical teams and support staff of over 100 people. No Air conditioning, so we slept downstairs in the basement.

Susan and I have been to Halifax and through the museum commemorating the Halifax explosion and the important lessons etched into the social conscience of Canada regarding living with blindness. There is no doubt in my mind that my treatment and recovery were a direct result of long-term efforts that began in response to this tragic event. There is a long history of the Canadian effort to be proud of, and as I write, my long-term prognosis appears to be moving towards recovery. We will see. :) ;) 11/5/21 - Sadly that eye does not see much. 3/3/22 - much better after cataract surgery

Arriving home, Susan and I found that family members had rescheduled things so that we could have some family and grandchild time. At the best of times, I am not very outgoing, nevertheless, I truly enjoyed the moments exchanging and updating trivia with family members and grandkids in the hot tub and table. But I was a beaten boy, my vision sucked, my head pounded, the increased volume overwhelmed my poor hearing and I was exhausted. Susan and I were not exchanging notes about what was going on, as we usually do at our morning staff meetings in the hot tub.

We both had an inkling but were too exhausted to process what we were seeing. So I didn’t really notice. I did not see it, I thought the ivermectin was a joke, I thought he was kidding. I did not know that he was not vaccinated.

I was mentally ill for over 8 years. I remember the confusion, not knowing what to do, not knowing what was wrong, the depression, the emotional instability that persists to this day.

Things don’t look any better from this side of the problem.

9.4.21

The Awakening of Icarus Flyby in 2016

In December 2015 Susan and I went for Christmas and he took me to see a herbalist. I bought a bunch of stuff and took it for a while but what caught my attention was something she said under her breath about statins. At home i googled brain fog and statins and suddenly found myself following a thread that lead to stopping all statins in 2017 and going on a ketogenetic diet.

He saved my life by shifting my focus from my trauma; but it doesn't happen all at once, there are bad days, you go through them, you try and do better. Mental Health is a 12 step treadmill.