02/19/2025
If you are wondering why I've been out of the office... About a week ago, I woke up with the inside third of the vision in my left eye gone. At first I tried to tell myself it was a floater, but when it didn't go away I got nervous. So Friday night I gave in and went to the University Hospital ER. There I was seen by an ophthalmologist, who decided it was serious enough that they called in a retinal surgery specialist at 9:30 on a Friday night, on Valentine's Day. Once she showed up, the fun began. As you can see in the picture, I had a retinal tear, which led to a detached retina, and the detached portion had three tears inside of it. They decided the best course of action for now would be to use a freezing therapy to seal the tears, and then put a gas bubble in my eye to push the retina back to where it belonged. The freezing therapy came first. They describe it as the worst brain freeze or ice cream headache you've ever had. They sold that short. Imagine the worst brain freeze you've ever had, about 12 times in the space of 10 minutes. Halfway through I was ready to say you know what, I'm good with being blind in one eye. Then, they literally stuck a needle into my eyeball and put a gas bubble in there. Oddly enough, I didn't feel that a bit. Since then, I have had to sleep sitting upright with my head tilted to the right so the bubble puts pressure on the retina. I had a blinding headache for the first couple of days, and even opening my right eye made my left eye feel like I was scraping my eyeball with my fingernails. They had me come back Monday for a follow-up, were they decided part of my headache was that I had too much gas and that was leading to me having glaucoma. So they stuck a needle in my eye again and pulled out some of the gas. Again, I didn't really feel the needle, and it did make the headache go away. I had my most recent follow up appointment today. They said my eye pressure is still a little high, but it's not at the dangerous levels it was Monday. So for the first time since this started Friday, I went to the doctor and did not get a needle stuck in my eye. I have been told that I can resume work in a couple of days. Thank you all for your patience during this time. And as a PSA, if you ever suddenly notice that it looks like someone has drawn a curtain over part of your vision, or if you're seeing frequent lightning bolts, or lots of squiggly lines, get yourself to an ophthalmologist or optometrist immediately. Retinal tears and detachments are very serious and if left untreated can lead to permanent blindness within a matter of days.
