BLOG051705

BLOG May 17 2005 (Tuesday)

Woah. Long day.

Stressfull. Well, to me it was stressful.

For the past week I've had a sort of flicker of light in my right eye. I could see it a bit in my left, but in my right
eye it was pretty constant and consistant. I usually get similar flickers just before I get a migraine. There was a
teensy difference with this flicker…

…No migraine.

But it hung around.

After almost a week I called my eye Dr (last Friday) to see if I could get in to see him. I thought of it too late
the day before--it was after closing hours. So, I called early in the morning and got their recording. I realized
I'd have to call back in a few minutes to get a living person. No problem. But just before I hung up the
recording said that they would be closed that day. Woah. Okay, wait until Monday.

Monday came, I called early. The Dr was in surgery all day, but come in on Tuesday at 4:00pm. Fine.

And the flicker was still there.

While I was out, on Monday, the office called and rescheduled my appointment for 5:45pm. What? I have
never heard of them being open so late. Then I learned that the Dr had a late surgery, so I figured that the only
reason he was actually coming in after it was to see me. Woah.

And see me, he did.

He took a nice long look in my by then dilated eyes and saw something that looked suspiciously like a tiny part
of my retina detaching. Just what I was fearing. (A good thing, though, is that my eye pressures are really
good! Finally! My glaucoma is under control!)

So he set me up for a special test. A dye that would cause the blood vessels in my eyes to glow for special
photos was injected into a vein in my hand. The dye gets to the eyes in seconds and remains in the eyes for
maybe 15 seconds, so they had to work fast. Woah, talk about seeing the sun! BRIGHT flashes with each
photo and I had to keep my eyes open!

They did it to both eyes but more on the right eye. They found a couple bleeding blood vessels, an anomaly that
might be a tiny part of my retina detaching and a bit of swelling around my optic nerve.

Shit.

The Dr saw the bleeders and told me that they were luckily placed where he could get at them so he wanted to
take care of them right away, with a laser. So, they did. More sunlight right INTO my eye. They numbed it
nicely then put a weird cup against my open eye that held it open and the cup had a special lens in it that they
shot the laser through. Neaters.

He shot it maybe a dozen times, basically cauterizing the vessel, I think. Then he says, "Now, before you go,
I'm going to put some cortisone behind the eye."

I fast tracked and asked, "And how are we going to do that?"

"A tiny shot."

Shit. Okay. An injection INTO my eye. Hate that. But, I'll be the first to admit, it wasn't so bad. The eye was
numb, but the eye lid was not. He said, "Close your eye," and he put the injection through the eyelid into the
eye, very quickly. Just a prick of pain and then a squishy noise as it went into my eye. Ewwwww! Then it was
done. But he was quick and enormously gentle.

That does not mean I was not stressed. Remember, I've a sort of phobia about things to do with the eye.
Especially my own.

I was shaking (and honestly, I wanted to cry--but it's close to my moon cycle) by the time we left. Nothing was
outright painful, it was just that I didn't expect to have to go through all that when I originally went. I was there
for two hours and I have to go back on Friday.

And…get this. By the time we left, there was only the Dr and the attending nurse there. Everyone else had
gone home! (It was 7pm!) How many Doctors would DO that? I mean, he could have just had me come back the
next day but he wanted to make sure that he got the bleeder fixed right then.

He's the best. If anyone ever needs an awesome, truly awesome opthamologist/eye surgeon, and you're in
CA…or even if you're not, his name is Dr. David Kaye and he's located in Central California. His group is
called Natural Vision.

He's the best.

When I got home I saw that my eye was swollen shut and because I'd been dilated, everything was WAY
bright.

Now the swelling is almost completely gone but my eyelid looks like I've got a nice deep purple make-up on it.
Kinda neat actually. Almost pretty. But it aches. Really deep.

I took pain killer just as the numbing stuff was wearing off. I can take more in about an hour. I'll need it. The
whole area feels like I was punched even though it doesn't look like it. I think that's from the myriad times I
was told to "Look up. Look left, etc etc" while my eyelid was being held open so I strained while those bright
lights stayed looking into the eye. *shudder*

I just want to sleep, now, but the pain killer always causes insomnia in me.

Sigh.