The Upstate Life
The Upstate Life

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Retinal Tear FTL

I usually don’t delve into my personal life on this blog all that much but it’s already been quite an interesting morning. You see, I had some eye floaters appear in my vision out of the blue a few months ago. At first, I thought they would simply go away but as the months passed I realized they were there to stay. Concerned, I was able to find a highly regarded ophthalmologist thanks in part to Washingtonian’s Top Doctors issue.

My appointment was today and while I was ready for the conclusion that the floaters were most likely permanent, I still had trouble accepting the fact that I had a retinal tear in my right eye which the ophthalmologist had diagnosed after a careful examination. The doctor said nearsighted individuals such as me are more prone to retinal tears, but I thought this is a condition you’re more likely to get when you’re older, like say 50+.

Anyway, he said I did the right thing by seeing an ophthalmologist about this as retinal tears left untreated would lead to retinal detachment, which is obviously much, much worse.

The doctor had to perform immediate laser surgery to repair the retina so I was escorted to another room, had my eye numbed via drops, and had the operation performed.

I thought laser surgery was painless but this was not the case, at least for me. Because the tear was near a nerve, every time the doctor triggered the laser I felt some moderate pain. It’s bad enough you’re sitting in a chair while a doctor is holding your eye open while he zaps laser beams into it, but to feel pain while sitting in said chair without being able to move away and dodge the beam of light that’s causing discomfort is just that much worse.

We had to take a few breaks because I couldn’t tolerate the constant beaming (is that the right phrase?) but we were finally done after about five minutes. My vision is still effed up from the dilation but it’s slowly improving. I can see fine distance-wise but up close, forget about it. Probably explains the reason why it’s taken me 15 minutes to spell check this post.

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