Earlier this week, my vision suddenly went blurry.

It didn’t go away after 30 minutes so I decided to go to the ER. I fortunately have no medical problems, so when something goes “wrong,” it’s easy for me to think “welp, this is it… I’m getting old. The deterioration starts now.” In the waiting room, there was an adorable seeing eye dog that I wanted to pet but I let him be. My mind went from “what a cute pup!” to “oh my gosh, what if I’m going blind and will need one myself someday…” It is easy to “catastrophize” things when everything feels uncertain and unknown.

The medical team took great care of me. Ran some tests and everything was within normal limits. I was waiting to get discharged when all of a sudden, the other side of my field of vision went blurry! Called the doc again and he had me sit tight. Ultimately, was diagnosed with an ocular migraine and instructed to follow up with an ophthalmologist the next day. Saw the ophthalmologist and he agreed that I had an ocular migraine. I’ve never had migraines, but it’s basically a migraine of the eye – you get all the visual symptoms without the searing headache. Was the weirdest and strangest phenomenon.

This episode made me grateful for several reasons. I’m grateful it happened at work while I had ready access to the ER and a team of kind, caring coworkers who cared for me in a time of need. If that happened on a solo hike or while driving, I really don’t know how I would have reacted. The timing could not have been better planned. This proves, yet again, that I can trust the timing of my life’s unfolding. I’m grateful for my baseline level of great health and will do everything in my power to keep it that way. I am more empathetic towards people who do have true health issues; it can be scary and unnerving to not know what’s wrong or to wonder what’s happening within your body.

I love seeing the world, its beauty, and all it has to offer. I’m excited and grateful that I’ve got a clean bill of health to keep exploring all of it.