Well hello everybody and I sure have missed writing and sharing my missives with you. The music thing is grabbing most of my personal bandwidth these days. But have I got a story to tell:
Yesterday I couldn’t see much of anything out of my left eye…
and today, I can…
but…
oh those but’s…
I’ve been “legally blind” in my left eye since the Russians launched Sputnik. I could see vague shapes, shadows, colors and that’s all. Forget the eye chart. Couldn’t even see the ‘E’ much less anything else. Like your face.
I had a point of focus though—about a quarter of an inch from my eyeball where I could read a blurry word or two. Fortunately my right eye is okay but you can imagine that the very notion of depth perception is a running joke in my life.
Flash forward to a January visit to The DMV when they insisted I return later this year to test all over again “because we want to see you,” said the nice lady with the clipboard. “Why is that,” I chirped, considering my driving record has been sterling for the last twenty years. (Everyone knock on wood, would ya). “Well you are legally blind in one eye and have a cataract…”
It just so happens that THE CATARACT of concern is in my legally blind eye so I’ve been postponing the surgery because, hey, I can’t see much anyway. But the cataract was getting really bad. So yesterday I finally land on a cushy highchair that will soon unfold into a surgical gurney. The chair and I are in a long row of patient “pods” at The Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and the pre-op begins. I am comforted that this place has a gold medal reputation and my husband and I have good insurance.
The staff is kind and attentive. As I am leaving the gender-neutral bathroom one nurse points out the obvious–that toilet paper is stuck to my hospital gown and I’m dragging it down the corridor. You know, it’s the little things you remember.
The doc stops by to reassure me and explain that the back of my retina is very big and misshapen so there is only one mono lens she can use in the procedure and I’m thinking…can you give me the anti-anxiety drugs NOW.
And then it’s show time as they push me and my Barcalounger to the operating room. Even though the nurse anesthetist is by my side, I am NOT asleep but rather seeing lights flash and feeling pressure and tugging on my eyeball. But thankfully, there is no pain.
And suddenly it’s done. They wheel me back to my “pod,” unhook the telemetry, IV and send me packing with a parting gift: An arachnid-looking eyepatch that remains in place until I return 17 hours later for a quick post-op visit with my doc.
The Big Reveal!
A tech guy removes the eye patch and instructs me to “look around” as he closes the door behind him.
Oh my God, it’s so bright in here. The computer screens glow neon like the Las Vegas Strip. There is an LED screen eye chart and I can actually see four fuzzy letters. Believe me, this is a big deal. I recognize my husband who is sitting in a nearby chair. I see his beautiful blurry face. This is a big deal. I extend my arms in front of me and the tips of my fingers mark my new point of focus. From yesterday to today, it goes from a quarter inch to about two feet away.
But my right eye, my dominant eye, is talking to me now and saying, “WAIT A MINUTE. WTF IS HAPPENING HERE?” And now my left eye is chiming in as I stare at the vertical edge of the office door, It’s wavy. I close my dominant eye and spin in place, gazing east, west, north, south and see soft wavy vertical lines. Everywhere.
Now it’s my brain’s turn to say “WTF.” When the doc walks in I quickly announce “this is a mixed bag” and describe the Alice in Wonderland experience I am having right now.
“But maybe it’s been this way all along? I was too blind to see it?”
She nods in agreement and shows me a picture of my retina on the computer screen. It looks like a gall bladder instead of a nice round eye. Kind of long and dippy. I’ve seen the image before, over the years, but right now I’m really eye-balling it—from the inside out. The way, the fancy name for all this commotion is metamorphopsia.
Did you know the retina sees images upside down but the brain turns them right side up? Yay brain!!! My doc says this visual disconnect between my right and left eye will get better with time as the brain works its magic. But the waves…they are here to stay.
I have another theory: I have floaters in both eyes. They drive me crazy. Laser surgery helped until I got more floaters. Here’s what took time: Going from Oh-My-God to Oh-Whatever. It’s not like those pesky clouds and slithery worms went away. They just became a lot more irrelevant.
Everybody has something, maybe lots of “somethings.” Our miraculous animal bodies are doing the best they can. So “thank you.” Thank you for this wild, wavy ride.
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