Tuesday November 27, 2007
Tuesday November 27, 2007 So one of the things about getting older is that since this is the first and olny time you get to do it there are always surprises. I just had an unpleasant reminder of that the last couple of weeks.
Three Sunday's ago I was working on the wings of my Velocity when I suddenly noticed what seemed to be a eyelash in my eye. I tried to brush it away but it stayed there. After I finished what I was doing I went back to the house and asked my wife Gretchen if she could see anything but she couldn't. I wasn't in any pain so I decided I would be sure to see my eye doctor (optometrist) on Monday.
When I woke up on Monday my vision was definitely worse but not terrible. Sort of like looking thru a window that had lots (thousands) of very tiny water drops on it. Now I'm definitely getting worried. I got an opeing to see the doctor first thing in the morning. He took a photo of my retina with a device call an OptiMap and proceeded to tell me I had posterior vitreous detachment. It wasn't a big deal since my retina was not torn but I should watch out for any flashing lights or shadows. I went back to work greatly relieved.
That night I decided that maybe I didn't really explain how messed up my vision was to the doctor and that maybe I should call him back on Tues.
Tues. my vision was about the same and I called the doctor. He set up an appointment with a retina specialist for Wed. It was about a block away form out offices. I felt better again. Later that afternoon I noticed that my vision seemed different. I covered my left eye only to discover that I couldn't see out of my right eye! I could see light and dark but it was like looking thru very dirty water. I ran out of the office and immediately went to the retina doctor's office. They weren't open. I was pretty paniced at this point. Since I was right next to the emergency room of a hospital I went there. Not surprisingly they couldn't do much but they did find out that the retina doctor was at a different office a few miles away. Off I went to the retina specialist.
The retina doctor examined my eye and found that I had three tears in my retina. Two little ones and one big one. One of the little ones was very near the big one and it was very nearly a "super" tear. They judge the size of the tears but the number of clock hours they span in the eye. A "super" tear is 3 or more hours. The big tear I had was two hours and the others were just a single hour. Because there was so much blood in my eye and there were signs of fluid entering under the tear the treatment that was done that night was cryo therapy. It involved freezing you ey from the outside-in in order to cause scar tissue that would prevent the retina from detaching. It was basically painless. I was sent home with instructions of what to watch for and what to do. Reading and computer was out, watching tv was ok. Also I was to try and lay on my side as much as possible since the tear was on the top of my eye and that way gravity would help try and peel the retinal of the eye wall.
On Wed. I could see vision improving in my eye by the hour. On Thursday I had a followup visit and I could read the 20/25 line. The blood in my eye was greatly reduced and there was evidence that the fluid that was seeping under the retina was gone. Because of this the doctor did laser treatment on the tears. This seemed to take quite a while (15 minutes?) and was surprisingly painful. I was sent home with basically the same instruction and a date for a followup on Tues.
By Tues. I was pretty darn bored. I did manage to watch about half the episodes of Sky King but mostly I tried to sleep. I was really tired of laying on my side. The visit to the doctor went well. I was able to read the 20/20 line on the chart. [Considering how messed up my vision is with the thousands of floaters it is pretty clear how poorly 20/20 stacks up as a measurment]. I was given the clearance to read an use the computer. I was to avoid anything that vibrate or shake my head. Since there was only one more day before the Thanksgiving holiday I decided to stay at home and take it easy. At least I could sit up again.
This week I'm back to work. Tomorrow I have another followup visit, hopefully everything is still ok. I feel like I'm down from say 500,000 floaters to maybe 200,000. Still pretty annoying. I realized driving home last night that driving at night wasn't so bad as I felt sort of normal since I couldn't see all the crap in my eye.
By now I've learned that as everyone ages the vitreous shrinks and eventually detaches from the retina. In most people it's a non-event. In people with myopia detachment happens earlier in life and with a higher risk of retinal tears. Bad eyes gets you coming and going. I was only a moderate myope at -5.25 before I had lasik back in '98. I had always thought I had pretty bad eyes until I had lasik and found that I was only considered moderate. It is hard for me to understand what my friends with -9 or -12 see like. Now I know they may be in for what I've just been thru.
The other bad thing is that since one eye has done this the likelihood of the other eye doing it is increased. At least I'll know what the heck is going on if it happens again. In the meantime I'm just hoping everything continues to heal properly.
Nov 27 2007, 01:55:42 PM EST Permalink