Life: Fixing the Hole in my Retina

August 27, 2006

Sometimes it’s hard to know when something’s wrong. About two months ago now I started noticing black spots in my vision, especially in my left eye. An emergency eye exam showed that I had floaters, boring, typical things of middle age and myopia (the latter I score especially high in).

But they drove me nuts. A follow-up visit to my own eye doctor showed, again, nothing creepy going on in there. But it was still unsettling and I couldn’t shake the thought that it seemed to be getting worse.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, during a going-away party for a beloved coworker, it was twilight and we were outside, as it’s summer and warm. Looking at the sky, I realized my left eye was a web, a swarm of dark and semi-tranluscent specks and squiggles.

The next morning I called my eye doctor: “It’s definitely getting worse.” He urged me to come in the same day, and by using a particularly uncomfortable lens (that is, it involved significant lubrication and then the placement directly on my eye and rotation there-on) he found small hole at the very top of my retina.

To prevent this from possibly snagging on my visceous whatever and possibly causing a retinal detachment (a rather unlikely scenario, but a major bummer) he prescribed a laser fix.

The following Monday in the early a.m. I had 48 zaps of a blue-green argon laser aimed carefully around the hole to fix it up.

As of last Wednesday, when I had my post-op follow-up, I’ve had my eyes dilated five times in the past several weeks. It’s getting such thta it feels quotidian.

2 Comments

  1. Mendingo says:

    Shite! I’ve got those specs and squiggles!

    Is that what it is?

  2. meteor says:

    You might want to find a better eye doctor if you have additional problems. There is a good one at the Casey Eye institute at OHSU – Dr. Rosenbaum. You’ll need a referral, but you can get one by asking your eye doctor or regular doctor.

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