Hettie’s Reflections – Blog Posts

More Details on the Second Eye Surgery

Once again, tons of details, mostly for my real-life friends.

Probably the worst thing about these eye surgeries so far was these four days before the second surgery when I had to take my right contact lense out. I asked my doctor whether it will make any sense to take out one of my -14 lenses and put my -2.75 in the left eye, and she shook her head and said I wouldn’t be able to see anything. So I had to survive with one eye.

For some reason, when I was talking to the clinic staff in the fall, I believed them when they told me that I would be fine with one eye for two weeks “because people use one eye most of the time anyway.” I should have been skeptical since by then, I already knew they do not understand the severity of my situation, but for some reason, I believed them.

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Second Eye Surgery

On Tuesday, I had my second (right) eye operated. This time my surgery was very early in the day (we had to be there at 8-15 AM) and overall went much better than the first one. Since I mentioned to Vlad that I’d experienced some pain during the first surgery (and the only reason I’ve said it was because of my known high pain tolerance level), Vlad made sure everybody knew about that. He mentioned it to each of the nurses who appeared by me, and to the surgeon. They ave me more local anesthesia, and not only ai had virtually no pain at that time, but I also had fewer effects when it started to wear off in the afternoon.


The fog started to disappear earlier, and I had less “bloody spots” during the first two days.
I ended up being again about -3, which was expected, even with the different lens types.
That was after the surgery that we had ice-cream instead of lunch, and I got more treats from Vlad today.

This morning I realized that the surgeon’s mark was still on my forehead 🙂

Sweet Stopover

Yesterday, I had my second cataract surgery. I think it went somewhat better than the first one, but I will share more details after today’s follow up.

That time, the surgery was earlier in the day, we were supposed to show up at 8-15AM. And when we were going back, it was almost lunch time. I suggested we will go out, just because we haven’t done so for a while. We tried a couple of places on Palatine, but there was nothing we really liked.

So we decided to do what I actually do sometimes, and looks like Vlad does sometimes as well: having ice-cream for lunch and instead of lunch 🙂

Both of us had affogato, I had int with coffee ice-cream, and Vlad – with vanilla (only mine is shown), and then Vlad had a scoop of strawberry ice-cream, and I had a blueberry pie one. Two-cource lunch, I’d say 🙂

Yellow Beets and Blue Cheese Salad

I spotted yellow beets in the Eurofresh store last week. Previously, I only saw yellow beets in my CSA shares. Even though I didn’t plan to cook anything with beets that week, I bought a bunch.

I baked the beets in foil (40-50 min at 400F) and made this simple salad:

Baby kale, baked beets, blue cheese, pistachios. Dressing: one part of pistachio oil, to parts of Madera balsamic. It feels like a holiday meal :}

Happy and Healthy Unions

I started to write this post yesterday, but when I reached out to Grandfather Google for the exact link, the first thing I saw was Pete Buttigieg announcing that he is dropping out of the race. He was my choice, and with Illinois primaries being so close, I felt incredibly upset and could not bring myself to write this post. 

This morning, I decided it is still worth writing. 

I saw this article published in Tribune last week, and though it was related to Pete Buttigieg, I had similar observations for a long time. Because of Vlad, I had multiple chances to observe not only his relationships but also many other same-sex couples. And I could not agree more with what this article is stating. When people try to tell me something about gender roles in families, and what is “more natural” for a specific gender, I always ask: and what about same-sex couples? I’ve observed it so many times – the fluid roles when it all depends on how busy each of the partners is, who is more stressed or who is sick, who is better in doing particular things. 

Gay and lesbian couples, Coontz found, tend to approach conflicts with more humor and affection, spend less time criticizing and lecturing each other and offer each other more praise and encouragement, compared with their heterosexual counterparts.

“As a marriage historian,” Coontz told me, “it seems to me we’re totally entering uncharted territory. Never before in history have we tried to do marriage in a way that is totally free from dictation by our biology — whether we can or can’t have babies; whether we have to have babies — or by legal assignments that only husbands can do this and only wives can do that. It’s the first time we’ve really tried to build marriages that were not laid out for us by law and hundreds of years of customs.”

Mary Altaffer

I believe that what is emerging now is how our future unions will look like. Indeed, happy and healthy unions.

Getting the First Job After College in the Soviet Union

This is the last post related to the story of higher education in the Soviet Union: how graduates would land on their first jobs.

Since it was happening in the Soviet Union, all colleges and universities were state schools, and there was no concept of the private educational establishment. I’ve already mentioned that the cost of education was zero, which did not mean that students’ life was easy. But there was still a price student had to pay upon graduation. This price was called “a distribution of specialists” or simply “a distribution.”

The Soviet Union had a “planned economy.” That meant that the government planned ahead how much of everything had to be produced in any given year, including the number of graduates of all educational establishments. And all employers: manufacturing plants, research institutions, Department of Defence, schools, hospitals, etc. had to plan how many graduates they need to fill in their positions. Since the Soviet Union did not follow the same educational standards as the rest of the world, we did not have Bachelors’s and Masters’s; everybody had to study for five years (some professions – longer). And everybody would graduate as “specialist,” not B.S. or B.A. or M.S.

The graduates were called “young specialists,” and a couple of months before graduation, they had to be “distributed.” The organizations which wanted to hire somebody had to place their requests with an educational institution. In my case, it was the Leningrad State University. There were about 300 students who would graduate the same year as me from the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics. The University would accept about 300 requests for young specialists, including those who could continue their studies as post-grad students, and including those who will become TAs in the University. 

All students were ordered by class rank, and on the day when the distribution commission was held, they were called into the room in their rank order. 

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“An American Summer”, and What This Book Means to Me

An American Summer is one of the more recent books by Alex Kotlowitz, and to be honest, I am not sure whether it makes sense to anybody who did not read any of his books before, or didn’t see any of his documentaries. 

I first learned about Kotlowitz when the Interruptors documentary was released. At that time, I was already quite involved in homeless charities, and I knew quite a bit about Chicago schools and existing issues. It just happened that I got tickets for Igor and myself to “Chicago Live!” where the first episode was the meeting with the “Interrupters” team. After the show, we talked to Alex Kotlowitz, the film director Steve James, and with amazing Ameena Matthews. And then we went to see the screening of the movie in the Siskel center, and there was more conversation there. In shots, for me, there is a history behind that book.

This book is just a collection of episodes. No plot. No conclusions. No judgment. But still, it shows, very painfully, how difficult it is to get out of poverty and violence. And how easy it is to fall back. Story after story, different people, the same scenario.

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It Feels Better, When Things are Explained

On the topic of doctors’ orders for before/after surgery, I’ve realized that it is extremely difficult to follow the instructions when you have no idea what’s the underlying reason for these do’s and dont’s. I know that sometimes doctors are annoyed with all these questions, but not understanding the reasons produce even ore questions :).

For example, I was given the list of eye drops with a rather complex schedule of how many times a day they should be inserted, depending on what’s the week after surgery. Plus, there were instructions not to exceed the dose and what to do if you miss the dose.

Only when I got the second package from the pharmacy, each of them had a half-page of explanation in large print :), I knew which of them is antibiotic, with is anti-inflammatory, so you can at least get an idea of how important/not important is to keep the schedule. And it was only on Tuesday that my eye doctor explained to me why the anti-inflammation drops dosage has to be reduced gradually.

Or take this no-bend/no-lift over 10 pounds for a week. And what happens after one week? All of a sudden, you can lift as much as you want? What about the bodyweight exercises? How do they count? Or when I asked about yoga, they said – OK. But yoga poses may be so different! Some include mild bending, some – mode bending. What about a shoulder stand? Or a headstand? Also, you need to know what’s the average level of activity of this particular person, because each body would react differently to the same level of physical activity. You need to know what exactly is important for the operated eye to make a better judgment of what you can or can’t do. Otherwise, you would end up asking about each individual move. Or will do something crazy 🙂


So I like it when I can get explanations. My doctor explained to me that vision is changing after the surgery because the inflammation goes down. Which may be obvious, but I didn’t think about it!
Now I am more informed, but now, surgery number two is coming. And it will bring new challenges:)

One the Positive Side

Three people reminded me yesterday about the Fat Tuesday – and I’ve honestly forgotten about it! So made a run to the Eurofresh to get some paczkis (in case people doubt I eat paczkis – I do!)

One with custard, one with prunes

Also, I got to sleep without an eye shield for the first time after the surgery and was able to use the face mask and to apply a hydration cream on my eyelid – first time since the surgery.

Also, since my “no bending” ban is lifted, I could do all of my yoga poses, including a downward-facing dog (and I can tell, I didn’t do it for a whole week!) It is going to be a productive day today!

The State of Mind and Body

Not being able to see as normal people sucks. I thought that the cause of my current frustration (and of me doing everything slowly) is the fact that I can’t see well. But now I believe that the real problem is that each surgery makes me older. Even this short surgery. Even just local anesthesia. I feel that I am tired, I can’t do things fast enough, how I usually do, and I can’t do as many things as I need. And this drives me crazy. All this “you are going to work the next day” does not work for me.

I was at one-week after-surgery follow-up with my eye doctor and asked her a million stupid questions. She replied patiently. And she examined my eye and said everything is fine; the implant is on its place, and everything is healing. It’s always very reassuring when another person can see what you don’t see :)).

We talked for almost an hour; she always explains “why,” which helps tons. I understand how the healing process works, what each of the eye drops is doing, and all other “whys.”

But I am still so tired – it makes me miserable….