A Collie's Holy Week

Holy Week is all the buzz around here.  My Sisters are busy with choir practice and Easter preparations and are trying to take more prayer time.  They weren't able to make reservations for all the people who wanted to come to our hermitages this weekend.  More than at any other time of the year, it seems, people want to be quiet and tune their spirits to God's spirit.  I hear it is a time to recall how God came to personally share in the experiences of creation, including suffering and death as a human creature.  This is consoling to me as a creature who is suffering more than I ever have before.  My blindness is very disorienting  and only a little more bearable because I know I am not left alone to go through it by myself.   

The Sisters and my doctor are hopeful I will regain sight in my left eye.  It is not a cataract afterall that is causing blindness but some other undescribable obstacle that should be healed with eye drops and pills.  My right eye is totally gone.  I see the doctor again on Tuesday. 

If I can't be out herding the guinea fowl, whom I hear squawking around the yard, and if I can't run out to greet guests, or do my other assignments, then Holy Week is as good a time as any to be confined to the porch.  I take it as a time of conversion while I listen to readings from passover and the way of the cross.  Perhaps my healed vision will be more than just that of my physical eyesight.

Give Me Eyes That See

"Give me eyes that see", is my prayer these days.  Even though my other senses have increased their ability to help me navigate in my canine world, I'd like to have my eyes back.  We are still investigating whether or not it is possible to have my cataracts removed.  I am among the uninsured, you know.  My human friends are working on that aspect from within their network of friends who support us.  If the eye specialist tells us this week that I really am a candidate for cataract surgery, people who see me as integral to the hospitality at Clare's Well say they will help to make it possible.  I'll keep you posted. 

In the meantime, I don't know myself how I do it, but I just know when there is a puddle ahead and I walk around it even though I can't see.  Isn't that amazing?  I love how God designed us.

Cataract surgery for Collie

Just to let you know, I visited the eye doctor yesterday.  She says I have mature cataracts in my eyes -- no wonder I can't see.  I also have red eyes, which are caused by inflammation and she gave the Sisters  medicine for me.  When the inflammation is gone, they can consider surgery for my cataracts.  I understand this is expensive.  I overheard shock in Jan's voice when she repeated what the receptionist said was the charge for my examination visit yesterday.  She had a large question in her voice.  The lady in the doctor's office calmly repeated the number and I could feel Jan's disbelief as she wrote out the check. 

In the meantime, I overheard them say my diet will be changed:  no more fatty treats and no people food. I don't like the sound of that.  But, what can I do about it?  I have little to say about what people give me to eat.  I am feeling better, and the ice is less in our yard, so I feel like wagging my tail when I go out.  This is a strange time for me and I'm not quite myself.  Hang in there with me, please.