The Lion's Pride Lion's Pride Volume 12 (Spring 2019) | Page 9

By January of 2016, I made a pledge to myself to start fighting to get my quality of life back. I challenged myself to do more and more tasks, starting with just body movement exercises. I set goals for each day and larger goals for the week. This was not easy because anything I did left me in pain. I was doing Epsom Salt baths twice a week and marijuana to take the edge off the pain. They told me not to do over-the-counter pain relief, since it was hard on my damaged liver. There was no way I was resorting to pain pills because they are too addicting and make you lethargic, and I had too much work to do. Being sighted in only one eye left me clumsy. I tipped over coffee cups, ran into corners of walls, and had to retrain myself to do simple up-close tasks. People sighted in only one eye see things differently within twenty feet. Beyond twenty feet, we see like everyone else. If your peripheral vision is normal in the one eye, you can drive. Fighting through the muscle pain, I was able to slowly regain some normal function. I was not going to give up. I was determined to learn how to function with sight in only one eye, including practicing my computer skills and driving. I started going to physical therapy and massage therapy, lifting weights, and walking. It took another six months of retraining and working out to start to feel normal. Regaining my life was a slow process. All the activity got me to a healthy state. Starting in July 2016, I worked my way up to five miles a day walking. Pokémon Go deserves