In which I go to the Retinal Surgeon again.
This morning I had the one week check up/touch up for the laser surgery that I had last week for a tear in the retina in my left eye.
Since then, my eye has been improving, albeit slowly. Most of the blood corpuscles are gone from my vision, though a few larger clumps of them are still present. When they move around, I often think there's an insect crawling or flying around. Lot of other "floaters" of various shapes and sizes are still present, including one giant I call "the gray fog".
This week, with a little more time to schedule, I got in to see the same doctor at their office in Prince Frederick, far closer to home than the office in Waldorf I had to drive to (dilated) last Friday. Not being an emergency case, it took a little longer to get through the line, but within an hour my left eye was wide open, and the doctor was checking it out.
He reported that it was healing as expected but that, as he mentioned last time, he would like to laser down the retina on the far side of the tear, where he couldn't reach last time. So he stuck my chin in the headrest, put the contact lens/eyepiece into my eye and began. This time, I was determined to keep track of the shots.
At around 160, he stopped, and wanted to inspect the work a little more. I told him my count and he looked at the counter on the laser (whoda thunk!) and he said "Close! 168." I think I drastically underestimated the number of shots last time. He said that only about half the shots are effective, as floaters, blood and other garbage absorbs them about that often.
After a few minutes of looking deep in my eye (literally), he decide to take a "few more shots". This time, he put on piece of headgear that looked like a military helicopters controller, laid me back in the chair and went back to work, free hand!
When he was done, the shot counter stood at 468, the eye was almost totally blind from the bright lights and laser, and it was throbbing, and weeping. He said it might hurt a little more this time because he used a little more power.
It's still a little uncomfortable, but I think the acetaminophen has started to kick in, and it's getting better. The eye is still partially dilated, though, as I write this.
The next appointment is in 2-3 weeks, mostly to check on the healing; I'm pretty sure that's the end of the laser treatments. I hope so.
A couple of months ago I woke up to white and black fireworks in my eye. Scared me and so after getting a hold of both of my eye docs, who happened to be on vacation I was relieved to find out that it was most likely the vitrious pulling away inside my eyeball. I did go in and have an eye exam after the weekend was over just to satisfy the docs and myself that that was what it was. He said that it could happen in both eyes and continue to pull away until about 65 percent pulled off. The nats were hard to put up with for a few weeks but now I either don't see them and gotten use to them or hey they went away. He said black and White fireworks is OK but if it were to become colored fireworks then that is something that involves the retina and that has to be taken care of immediately. So so far so good just the nats and I battling it out every once in awhile. Oh THE JOYS OF AGING. Mary
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