Today was a rough day.

Yesterday I had another vision exam that quantified just how much worse my eyes have gotten since last time. While the results were not surprising, given I have a degenerative eye disease, it is still a painful reality check to realize just how much worse it has gotten.

Sometimes I wonder why they still have me do peripheral vision tests. “How many fingers am I holding up?” “Well your entire hand just disappeared.”

Unfortunately for me, vision insurance is designed for normal people who only need one pair of glasses. I have three different pairs that I have to use depending on the task at hand, and I have to get all three prescriptions updated. So that was a nice little kick in my wallet, but I am not totally blind yet and I figured it would be worth the money to try to maximize the usefulness of what vision I have for as long as I can.

I have already gotten enough training that I am not scared of my vision getting worse, but it still can be very depressing. I knew that moping around the house wasn’t going to make me feel any better. I wanted to just hang out with friends in Salt Lake, but Annika was at work and I couldn’t find a babysitter. So I grabbed my cane and dragged my three kids out to a Subway that they had been begging to go to for a long time.

The trip nicely illustrates the limitation of last mile bus service here. What would have been an 11 minute drive was a 55 minute one way trip on a train and a bus that only runs once an hour. Motivating little boys to walk fast enough to not miss the hourly bus can be challenging under the best of circumstances. It gets even more challenging when you have a toddler that is struggling with potty training and has an accident just before that bus arrives.

It would have been a lot easier to just give up and sit at home. But thirty years from now, my sons are not going to remember a bit of bus drama. They will remember that I made time for them and that I chose not to let my lousy circumstances keep me from taking them on urban adventures.

Making memories with my children is worth some inconvenience.