Retina Scraped, Not Detached

I’m still waiting to hear about Mark’s trial. I feel so horrible I wasn’t there. You have no idea how awful.

But I was seriously freaked about my eye– and I wanted to put it off, but the eye doctor said, “NO! Come in NOW!” So I did.

What happened was last night when I went to bed around midnight, I realized I could see bursting bright stars in this sort of arrow pattern across the bottom of my visual field, every time I moved my eyes in the dark this pattern “re-lit” and then faded again. I experimented and realized it was my right eye (the one you-know-who took out and replaced…). I thought it was weird, but it didn’t hurt, so I went to sleep.

Problem was the next morning by 8 am, the pattern was still there. Actually it was worse, and you could see the area behind the bursting stars as a sort of retinal fatigue sort of washed out area. Bright in the dark and darker in the light. Still no pain, but I could see the arrow pattern even just being up and walking around. It wasn’t like the light show I got before migraines (which I only tend to get once a year anyway, thankfully.)

I looked up symptoms and it was either eye gel hardening and pushing on my retina, which is no big deal– OR, it could be the retina actually tearing from the eye wall which leads to blindness! So– nothing or potential blindness. Great! AND you only have about 24 hours after symptoms start to get into surgery if it turns out to be serious.

DAMN IT!!!

I called our insurance people (to check for eye coverage) then I called a specialist to check my eyes out and what I reported had him scheduling me as soon as he could get me in.

Gerick came home from work early and drove me to the appointment and I was checked out. Got my pupils dilated and the whole thing. The great news is that my retina was NOT detaching! The bad news is that somehow my retinal wall was actually scraped in my right eye. The other good news is that my eyes look otherwise healthy and my vision is still 20/20 in my right eye and 20/25 in my left. Other than needing “cheaters” due to age for reading, I’m in great shape. I’m not sure how I scraped the interior of my eye just during the course of a normal day, but…

I have a follow up appointment in a month. I can still see the arrow-shaped pattern in my visual field. Apparently, it was a pretty bad scrape. The doctor told me I did the right thing, though– he said I had the symptoms of a retinal tear so it was not just worth checking, it was extremely vital to check very quickly.

Still… COULD THE TIMING OF IT HAVE BEEN ANY WORSE!?!?!  I really don’t think so!

One final little note… it was the first time I’ve had a full eye exam like THAT in my life, with the dilation and bright lights and photographing of the retina and all of that… and the doctor did find a small bit of scar tissue in the back of my retina by the optic nerve. Very well healed– and only on the right eye. He thought it was a little weird… almost like an eye surgery scar…! (DUM DUM DUM DUMMMMM!)

You don’t say, Doc, you don’t say…