driving to a solution?

Well, I’m taking some concrete action on my driving issues. I’m increasingly convinced that the problem is something with my eyes’ focus (that caused that panic attack back in Taiwan that started all this). I feel like I can’t look straight at anything and keep a focus on it; a highway scene is just sort of hard for me to mentally parse, and, as Ted said when we were discussing it the other day, it’s tiring because it demands a lot more mental attention than I should. When I was a new driver, not very good and scared of everything, the more I drove the more I could drive, and the more confident I got. This isn’t like that; there are better days and worse days, and there doesn’t seem to be much progression. I want to be able to jump in the car and go to the other house, two and a half hours away, or even drive myself to the airport without being worried my brain will go haywire(er) and I’ll end up causing a pile-up.

The other day someone mentioned that the excellent local med school, OHSU, has a similarly excellent eye institute. I have an appointment there for 8:15 AM tomorrow – they’re now booking for April and May, but I got lucky because they had a cancellation. Lucky for me, I can get there on public transit. It will take 68 minutes, according to their website, as opposed to the 24 minutes Google Maps says driving will take; with the parking and morning rush-hour traffic, I bet that driving would be 45-60 minutes anyway but still, that’s kind of the whole problem. This is not a good country in which to be dependent on public transit.

I have a strong suspicion they’ll say, “Sorry, can’t help – your eyes look fine to us. That will be $180, please!” but I have to fix this, and I have to start somewhere.

(Really obvious things are already ruled out. If I had cataracts, they’d have found them when examining me for glasses, and when I went to the doctor back in Taiwan, he was sure I hadn’t had a stroke or anything like that. I’ve had a couple of general physicals in this time, too.)