The Eyes Have It

I know I said no more comment about health or my stroke anymore, but I’ve had a scare. About a month and a half ago I was working on a friends lawn, fool that I am I didn’t wear eye protection because the dust mask fogged my glasses. She has a very sandy lot, the dust is something fierce. A small piece of wood flew up and hit my eye, didn’t think much of it and keep going. Then the mower died and I was much more concerned about that. Later that evening I noticed a soft blur to my right eye, I figured no big deal it’ll go away by morning. Still had the blur in the morning, had things to do and I used some drop and didn’t give it a second though.

A week later I decided that it hadn’t gotten better so I made an appointment with my eye doctor which I figured was about right for my eye, probably scratched the damn thing, no big deal. Now we’re about two, three week from the injury, I noticed that I had trouble getting the eye working in the morning. I saw a haze in my right eye, hard to open the eye as well first thing upon waking. Now I’m worried, think this is a bigger deal than just a scratched eye. I go to the doctor, wait while she does her thing, puts drops in my eyes and does some test that I didn’t think I did that well. She told me I did the right thing in seeing her, that she noticed something going on in my eye.... she has my attention now. I wait... and wait, while she goes through my chart and updates it...... I wait. Finally she turns and says when she looks into my right eye she can see small hemorrhages against the retina. Says I need to see a specialist very soon, not today but the sooner the better; say’s she’ll make an appointment.

Like most men I calculate the odds as her nurse calls to make my appointment. A month out, no big deal... I should get carrots the next time I’m at the market. She copy’s the information for me, I’m concerned but not worried... I can handle this. Getting home I call the friend with the offending yard, tell her about my appointment, she asks me why so long? Now my concern goes up a couple of notches, she tells me that if it was her eyesight she’d want to be seen as soon as possible. She has a really good point! I call the specialist, they can get me in a week early, I take it. It takes me a few days to realize that in addition to the hard to open, haze around the eye when I first wake, now I see a spider-web in my right eye. Very gossamer but black, darts away when I try to focus on it. It does not go away as I wake up and get moving. I turn to Google and find that it is a sign of a detached retina along with a bright flash of light which I don’t have. Panicked I call the specialist to hurry the appointment, hell I want to get in right away. No dice, the doctor doesn’t come in until Tuesday at the earliest so I have the weekend to go.

Now I don’t know about you, but when one thing goes wrong everything seems to follow. On Friday I break my glasses. Now I am truly fucked... I have blurry vision, see spider-webs in black, I have a new word processing program that I need to learn ASAP and on top of all that I now have to find out about my glasses. To make a long story short I don’t have to new glasses, they can order the frames. I got an emergency appointment with an eye doctor, when they put the drops in to dilate my eyes the cobwebs go away and I’m told by the doctor that tortured me that I am a very lucky man. Plus my frame came in the next day... I feel blessed. Still have to go see the retinal specialist on Tuesday but I go in feeling very lucky and very blessed. Wonders never cease!