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Surgery sucks!
12 years ago
General
This is basically a rant, a venting of frustration and anger at something I have no control over.
Back in late October, I had a detached retina, and I was in for surgery on Halloween. Wonderfully auspicious day, don't ya think?
The surgery went well, as surgery. Part of my problem is that I didn't recognize the few signs I had earlier as significant. I didn't have the classic 'flashing lights', for instance. When it did come to my attention, the macula (the part of your retina where you can actually focus your attention and see details) had detached. Basically, my retina had detached completely and was floating inside my eye and slowly collapsing into a ball.
Fortunately, I got a good surgeon and he got the retina re-attached. Having the macula detach, however, means that I will never have decent vision in that eye again, because there's no way he could re-attach it exactly where it was. Everything in that eye is blurry and i have some relatively minor problems with double vision. Fortunately, not enough to keep me from driving, although I get eye fatigue now and cannot drive anywhere near as long as I used to. Three or four hours is about my limit anymore, and I used to be able to drive almost indefinitely, at least until I was too tired to be safe. Which was a minimum of about 12 hours. One of my preferred pastimes, taken away. Also one possible source of income, as I used to drive semi's. There are other reasons that isn't a good choice any more, at least not Over-The-Road, or OTR.
It also makes reading a computer screen a bit of a struggle. I can read, but it's basically using the good eye and ignoring the other one. Applies to pretty much any kind of reading, actually. And I go way beyond bibliophile, to bibliomaniac. My absolute favorite pastime, taken away. Again, my limiting factor is eye fatigue. Although I don't write a lot, I do enjoy doing so and this limits that as well.
Believe me when I tell you it isn't any fun at all.
Folks, take care of your eyes. Pay attention when anything, anything at all, changes. Go visit your ophthalmologist regularly and anytime things don't seem right. You can't replace them and they are not easy to repair. Nor is it cheap, I ran up over $25k in medical bills in basically one day, and that was outpatient surgery. You can easily multiply that by 10 for inpatient. Fortunately insurance paid most of it, but I still got hit pretty hard. It's going to take me a couple of years to pay it off.
I apologize for venting on everyone, but I needed to get this off my back
Back in late October, I had a detached retina, and I was in for surgery on Halloween. Wonderfully auspicious day, don't ya think?
The surgery went well, as surgery. Part of my problem is that I didn't recognize the few signs I had earlier as significant. I didn't have the classic 'flashing lights', for instance. When it did come to my attention, the macula (the part of your retina where you can actually focus your attention and see details) had detached. Basically, my retina had detached completely and was floating inside my eye and slowly collapsing into a ball.
Fortunately, I got a good surgeon and he got the retina re-attached. Having the macula detach, however, means that I will never have decent vision in that eye again, because there's no way he could re-attach it exactly where it was. Everything in that eye is blurry and i have some relatively minor problems with double vision. Fortunately, not enough to keep me from driving, although I get eye fatigue now and cannot drive anywhere near as long as I used to. Three or four hours is about my limit anymore, and I used to be able to drive almost indefinitely, at least until I was too tired to be safe. Which was a minimum of about 12 hours. One of my preferred pastimes, taken away. Also one possible source of income, as I used to drive semi's. There are other reasons that isn't a good choice any more, at least not Over-The-Road, or OTR.
It also makes reading a computer screen a bit of a struggle. I can read, but it's basically using the good eye and ignoring the other one. Applies to pretty much any kind of reading, actually. And I go way beyond bibliophile, to bibliomaniac. My absolute favorite pastime, taken away. Again, my limiting factor is eye fatigue. Although I don't write a lot, I do enjoy doing so and this limits that as well.
Believe me when I tell you it isn't any fun at all.
Folks, take care of your eyes. Pay attention when anything, anything at all, changes. Go visit your ophthalmologist regularly and anytime things don't seem right. You can't replace them and they are not easy to repair. Nor is it cheap, I ran up over $25k in medical bills in basically one day, and that was outpatient surgery. You can easily multiply that by 10 for inpatient. Fortunately insurance paid most of it, but I still got hit pretty hard. It's going to take me a couple of years to pay it off.
I apologize for venting on everyone, but I needed to get this off my back
as for the eye issue, to 'rest' the bad eye and still read, would an eye patch help?
I have an appointment in a couple of weeks. Waiting to see what he says then.