A Week of Doctors, Part I . . .
I don't even know where to start this time, so I guess I'll start at the beginning.
Tuesday . . .
As mentioned last time, my retina tore nearly two weeks ago. On the Sunday evening prior, I had some flashing in my right eye just before I went to bed. This is usually a precursor to some sort of activity in my eye, but since I've had it before, and it was right as I was getting into bed, I didn't think twice about it. I got up on that Monday morning and headed in to work, and as I was sitting down at my desk, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my right eye. Of course, I looked in that direction - and there was a giant, fuzzy caterpillar-like floater with a bunch of Medusa-like snakes/tails flinging themselves hither and yon.
Well crap.
Whenever something like this happens, you have to call your opthamologist and be seen. So I rang them. My regular retina guy (whom I like very much) wasn't working that day, but he was working the next, so I asked if I could see him the next morning. The last time this happened, I was told that I could wait until the next day. The guy on the phone said he thought I really should be seen that same day, but he made the appointment for me for the next.
And I kept working.
And about an hour or so later, I realized that there were a LOT of tiny floaters in my eye (along with all the snake tails), and I was having a lot of trouble seeing.
So I put my left hand over my left eye . . . and realized that not only was my right eye a fricking sand storm of floaters, I couldn't really see out of it. I could see some shapes and colors, but mostly it looked like white static on the telly. That was it.
Shit.
I rang the retina guy's office again and told them that I thought I had probably better be seen that day after all and they told me I could be seen in a western suburb of Chicago accessible by the L. So, a few hours later, I toddled on over and got on the L and then walked over to the office.
I've been through many of these retinal exams before and they are never very fun. This was no different - until the doctor starting saying things I'd never heard before - things like hemorrhage, and horseshoe tear. I was cracking jokes attempting to keep myself from freaking out.
There was so much blood in my eye that the doctor couldn't see well enough to do surgery immediately. I had to sit quietly in the waiting room, with my eyes closed and patched, for what turned out to be two hours.
Then, when she took another look, she felt that enough of the blood had settled that she could proceed with surgery. I had emergency laser surgery right then. Two different procedures. The first was with a regular laser. It's not a lot fun, but I kept reminding myself that it wasn't even a patch on kidney stone pain and was able hold still. She couldn't reach one end of the horseshoe with the regular laser, so she had to use a cryo laser (or, as I call it, a freezy laser). She was successful in pretty much nailing my retina back together.
I cabbed back to my office to pick up a few things, and then walked to the train. I didn't get home until 8:30 that night. It wasn't a very fun day. I went back in to the city last Tuesday to see my regular retina guy. He carefully checked everything again and told me that he thought things were going to be fine. I couldn't drive, and I had to sleep propped up on the sofa - kinda like I had to do when I had shoulder surgery last summer.
After another week off where all I did was sit around and watch old Perry Mason reruns, I went back to work on Monday.
Which brings us to this most recent Tuesday.
I went back to my retina guy for him to check my eye again. Luckily, he said multiple times that my retina looked really good. I have to see him again in May - they watch this kind of stuff pretty closely.
I still have some floaters, but the haziness seems to be mostly gone. I'm going to try driving tomorrow. I was going to try today after work because I needed to go to the store, but I missed my window of opportunity.
So, pretty much feeling exceedingly lucky, and majorly grateful. My vision will likely return to normal, and these floaters (which are blood) will eventually be reabsorbed by my body. :-)
That's the update on my eye. I have lots more to share - but I'll split it up :-) In the meantime, Todd Rundgren keeps popping up on my Facebook feed. I don't know why :-D specifically his tune, Can We Still Be Friends. Somehow I missed Todd singing his own work on this one, because I was familiar with the song through a cover that the late Robert Palmer cut (one of my favorite artists). Both are awesome. Here's Robert Palmer's version:
And here is Todd's original - different key and a little slower tempo. I love them both:
Tuesday . . .
As mentioned last time, my retina tore nearly two weeks ago. On the Sunday evening prior, I had some flashing in my right eye just before I went to bed. This is usually a precursor to some sort of activity in my eye, but since I've had it before, and it was right as I was getting into bed, I didn't think twice about it. I got up on that Monday morning and headed in to work, and as I was sitting down at my desk, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my right eye. Of course, I looked in that direction - and there was a giant, fuzzy caterpillar-like floater with a bunch of Medusa-like snakes/tails flinging themselves hither and yon.
Well crap.
Whenever something like this happens, you have to call your opthamologist and be seen. So I rang them. My regular retina guy (whom I like very much) wasn't working that day, but he was working the next, so I asked if I could see him the next morning. The last time this happened, I was told that I could wait until the next day. The guy on the phone said he thought I really should be seen that same day, but he made the appointment for me for the next.
And I kept working.
And about an hour or so later, I realized that there were a LOT of tiny floaters in my eye (along with all the snake tails), and I was having a lot of trouble seeing.
So I put my left hand over my left eye . . . and realized that not only was my right eye a fricking sand storm of floaters, I couldn't really see out of it. I could see some shapes and colors, but mostly it looked like white static on the telly. That was it.
Shit.
I rang the retina guy's office again and told them that I thought I had probably better be seen that day after all and they told me I could be seen in a western suburb of Chicago accessible by the L. So, a few hours later, I toddled on over and got on the L and then walked over to the office.
I've been through many of these retinal exams before and they are never very fun. This was no different - until the doctor starting saying things I'd never heard before - things like hemorrhage, and horseshoe tear. I was cracking jokes attempting to keep myself from freaking out.
There was so much blood in my eye that the doctor couldn't see well enough to do surgery immediately. I had to sit quietly in the waiting room, with my eyes closed and patched, for what turned out to be two hours.
Then, when she took another look, she felt that enough of the blood had settled that she could proceed with surgery. I had emergency laser surgery right then. Two different procedures. The first was with a regular laser. It's not a lot fun, but I kept reminding myself that it wasn't even a patch on kidney stone pain and was able hold still. She couldn't reach one end of the horseshoe with the regular laser, so she had to use a cryo laser (or, as I call it, a freezy laser). She was successful in pretty much nailing my retina back together.
I cabbed back to my office to pick up a few things, and then walked to the train. I didn't get home until 8:30 that night. It wasn't a very fun day. I went back in to the city last Tuesday to see my regular retina guy. He carefully checked everything again and told me that he thought things were going to be fine. I couldn't drive, and I had to sleep propped up on the sofa - kinda like I had to do when I had shoulder surgery last summer.
After another week off where all I did was sit around and watch old Perry Mason reruns, I went back to work on Monday.
Which brings us to this most recent Tuesday.
I went back to my retina guy for him to check my eye again. Luckily, he said multiple times that my retina looked really good. I have to see him again in May - they watch this kind of stuff pretty closely.
I still have some floaters, but the haziness seems to be mostly gone. I'm going to try driving tomorrow. I was going to try today after work because I needed to go to the store, but I missed my window of opportunity.
So, pretty much feeling exceedingly lucky, and majorly grateful. My vision will likely return to normal, and these floaters (which are blood) will eventually be reabsorbed by my body. :-)
That's the update on my eye. I have lots more to share - but I'll split it up :-) In the meantime, Todd Rundgren keeps popping up on my Facebook feed. I don't know why :-D specifically his tune, Can We Still Be Friends. Somehow I missed Todd singing his own work on this one, because I was familiar with the song through a cover that the late Robert Palmer cut (one of my favorite artists). Both are awesome. Here's Robert Palmer's version:
And here is Todd's original - different key and a little slower tempo. I love them both:
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