FA+
Shop
Surgery... Again? NO!!!!!!
7 years ago
General
Hamha:
So I started the day feeling very confident that, at long last, I would be attending, what was to be, my one-and-only eye appointment for the entire year. Oh, how great that was...
...until the Fellow looked at my eye and took a worrisome extra amount of time with the flurocene (A dye that helps eye doctors see defects on the ocular surface) with the slip-lamp (A tool used to help get a deeper look at one's ocular surface and interior)
When the doctor came in I was confirmed to have my arch nemesis return. This being a 'tube exposure'.
Tube exposures have haunted me over 15 years. They occur as a result of the eye rejecting the artificial 'drain' out. Typical protocal is to go on antibiotics until you get into surgery, usually within a week, to keep from allowing an infection to go far enough to cause Orbital Celluitis (More scary as it hurts the body beyond the eye). However this option is moot as a result of my eye being 'dead' and it continuing to 'shrink' as a result of the eye's slow death.
So... I now have to go back in a few weeks to meet up with a doctor in Pittsburgh, who works with my Glaucoma specialist, to see if April is my month to have my right eye totally removed.
What's the point in waiting? My Glauacoma doctor, who is quite an awesome guy, had to 'cut' the exposed part of the tube out of my eye while in the office. However, given the eye's decay, it is not likely to heal. This inability to heal equals either doing a pointless repair of the tube or just removing the eye before other artificial parts find themselves becoming exposed as the eye shrinks.
This bothers me most as now I'm scared of how this will impact my job. Ocular situations have destroyed me in the past. Removing an eye is, interestingly enough, the very least complicated of procedures. However I will still need follow-up appointments as they work to ensure it heals right and to also fit me with a prosthetic eye. (I wonder if I could get one as emerald green as Spike's?)
Now there is a small chance that the appointment with the eye removal people / 'Ocular Plastics' will yield success from the trim job my specialist did today. However there is not much optimism and, to be honest, I'm so done with these unwanted 'surprises' just when I finally am getting somewhere in my life that isn't eyeball related.
Good news is that, with some talk, I did learn that ever using this eye, its connections, etc. to ever gain my site back in my lifetime is very unlikely. So it is not like I'd be holding on to anything but a diseased ravaged eyeball.
My left eye, which has been crushed by Glaucoma for over 30 years, will remain. So I'll have one false and one 'true' eye, should the procedure get underway.
The good news, for anyone else out there with Glaucoma, is how they've come up with organic ways to create drainage tubes in one's eye. So, unlike me, worrying about a 'tube exposure' is very unlikely. They also have near-painless laser treatments that solve the issue of ocular fluid properly draining from your eye. (Glaucoma is when your eyes can't properly keep a proper amount of fluid pressure in your eye)
So I now will be waiting for a call next week about when to come in for 'the appointment' to see how soon another surgery is my future. I'm hoping more sooner-than-later as I want as little downtime from work as possible along with nothing interfering with BronyCon this year. I want to be at my personal 120% by July 31st. It's my "1" positive thing to look forward to this year and I will see it through!
Thanks for reading. I don't do well sitting on such matters. Also, as my long chain of journals shows, it wouldn't make sense if I didn't log this part of the journey, too.
Toot-a-loo and scootaloo!
Your Pal:
---Yosh E. O'Ducky ;)
So I started the day feeling very confident that, at long last, I would be attending, what was to be, my one-and-only eye appointment for the entire year. Oh, how great that was...
...until the Fellow looked at my eye and took a worrisome extra amount of time with the flurocene (A dye that helps eye doctors see defects on the ocular surface) with the slip-lamp (A tool used to help get a deeper look at one's ocular surface and interior)
When the doctor came in I was confirmed to have my arch nemesis return. This being a 'tube exposure'.
Tube exposures have haunted me over 15 years. They occur as a result of the eye rejecting the artificial 'drain' out. Typical protocal is to go on antibiotics until you get into surgery, usually within a week, to keep from allowing an infection to go far enough to cause Orbital Celluitis (More scary as it hurts the body beyond the eye). However this option is moot as a result of my eye being 'dead' and it continuing to 'shrink' as a result of the eye's slow death.
So... I now have to go back in a few weeks to meet up with a doctor in Pittsburgh, who works with my Glaucoma specialist, to see if April is my month to have my right eye totally removed.
What's the point in waiting? My Glauacoma doctor, who is quite an awesome guy, had to 'cut' the exposed part of the tube out of my eye while in the office. However, given the eye's decay, it is not likely to heal. This inability to heal equals either doing a pointless repair of the tube or just removing the eye before other artificial parts find themselves becoming exposed as the eye shrinks.
This bothers me most as now I'm scared of how this will impact my job. Ocular situations have destroyed me in the past. Removing an eye is, interestingly enough, the very least complicated of procedures. However I will still need follow-up appointments as they work to ensure it heals right and to also fit me with a prosthetic eye. (I wonder if I could get one as emerald green as Spike's?)
Now there is a small chance that the appointment with the eye removal people / 'Ocular Plastics' will yield success from the trim job my specialist did today. However there is not much optimism and, to be honest, I'm so done with these unwanted 'surprises' just when I finally am getting somewhere in my life that isn't eyeball related.
Good news is that, with some talk, I did learn that ever using this eye, its connections, etc. to ever gain my site back in my lifetime is very unlikely. So it is not like I'd be holding on to anything but a diseased ravaged eyeball.
My left eye, which has been crushed by Glaucoma for over 30 years, will remain. So I'll have one false and one 'true' eye, should the procedure get underway.
The good news, for anyone else out there with Glaucoma, is how they've come up with organic ways to create drainage tubes in one's eye. So, unlike me, worrying about a 'tube exposure' is very unlikely. They also have near-painless laser treatments that solve the issue of ocular fluid properly draining from your eye. (Glaucoma is when your eyes can't properly keep a proper amount of fluid pressure in your eye)
So I now will be waiting for a call next week about when to come in for 'the appointment' to see how soon another surgery is my future. I'm hoping more sooner-than-later as I want as little downtime from work as possible along with nothing interfering with BronyCon this year. I want to be at my personal 120% by July 31st. It's my "1" positive thing to look forward to this year and I will see it through!
Thanks for reading. I don't do well sitting on such matters. Also, as my long chain of journals shows, it wouldn't make sense if I didn't log this part of the journey, too.
Toot-a-loo and scootaloo!
Your Pal:
---Yosh E. O'Ducky ;)
Just needed some time to write and think things out.
I really wish they could make a functional prosthetic eye and interface it directly to the nerve. I suppose they could do that now, given enough funds to develop it. Even more interesting is if the removable eye wasn't actually attached to the nerve, but transmitted the info directly to a near-microscopic receiver placed on the brain side of the optic nerve, via blu-tooth or 5G. People with damaged nerves could see then. That would also allow them to remove the eye and still be able to see with it! You could take it out and look inside your own ear! I imagine such use would be very disorienting to the brain though - at least until you got used to it.
Maybe, in another 20 to 30 years, such functional prosthetic eyes might actually be in use by some people. Things like 200 mega-pixel cameras will surely be in use by then, so people with prosthetic eye cameras might be able to see more detail than our own biological eyes can. Even better, one could probably toggle between seeing in normal, magnified, infrared, UV, or other options by simply linking to their eye with a smartphone app!
I like the idea of the bypass for the implanted cybernetic implant. I'd give that shot if the option became available. Though, I agree in taking it out being quite disorientating.
I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for a positive outcome in the next few weeks. I really am tired of this bologna.
I'll be keeping everyone posted as I learn more. Downtime, from what I gather, is not long compared to other surgeries. So I'm thankful for that. Also, as my job is sitting in front of a computer listening to first-world problems of customers, I don't need to take too much time off (Unless it is advised I do)
For the job, you could have a reclining chair, so you could lie down while listening to those first world problems. Get your rest and work at the same time. But, I'm sure the boss doesn't want anyone lying down on the job!
It truly amazes me what people get upset over. Gas points are the biggest. They are, pretty much, what all the grocery store chains do and can take the most amount of time to verify if a customer is lying about whether-or-not they are entitled to them. However they really get grumpy about them and I hear the most displeasure about our stores because of them.
I wish my greatest problem was not getting .50 cents off per gallon of gas. <LoL!>
That's almost like the credit cards that give people 2 percent back on grocery purchases. People tend to worship those cards, not thinking that they are still spending 15 to 30 percent extra in interest, that they would not be paying if they simply used cash, or even a debit card.
If I don't get at least one call per day about someone being 'scammed out of their gas points' I'd be immensely surprised.
It's quite unfortunate how much businesses play "Follow The Leader" as most do gas points, crappy web sites, etc. So, personally, I try to provide a superior service by treating people like people instead of as numbers on a card. It makes my metrics look terrible BUT my customers, 95% of the time, leave my calls happy and thankful for how I showed genuine care.
You make people happy, or you make your company happy. But, you generally can't have both at the same time. It's like serving two masters.
I think I'm just taking a lot of the wrongs done personally. I can't help it as, even at work, there are many things I can't do as a result of 3rd party developers throwing ADA to the wind.
*Plops on the ground* Given everything else, I wonder if I will be able to hold together enough to keep this job. I'm so overwhelmed and I am not sleeping very well. Ugh.
Oh! I actually switched from Lexapro to Zoloft. This is relevant as, through talking with my doctor, I learned that Zoloft works to retain Saratonin, the chemical that keeps our bodies awake. There are tons of Melatonin, sleep chemical, supplements out there but no over-the-counters for Saratonin.
So, thanks to Zoloft, I get what I need to keep from imploding mentally while also having something to compensate for how my body no longer can discern day from night. Woop!
Also, tomorrow I'll see if I can rustle up the script for two of my comics (one actually drawn and complete and the other the script for Rainbow Drive issue 1). I'm thinking email might be the best way to send it your way, and luckily, I think I still have yours (assuming you didn't change it).
The nice thing about stories, especially ones your heart was in, is that they never truly fade away. I can still imagine the characters, their interactions, and we can always talk out possible outcomes at all sorts of levels. Heck, if you had any pals on your chat spots who were interested, I'm sure you could create some really neat campaigns / adventures / slice-of-life moments to play out potential moments in the tale outside of what is available.
I'm as plain as it gets. So my e-mail address is still the same. It's like I've had the same mobile phone number for over 15 years. How do they put it? If it isn't broke, don't fix it. :)
My mental state is, well, annoyed. I wrote this last night in hopes of getting thoughts sorted out. After I did, I noticed the major stresser is my job and my history of career ending after procedures and repeat appointments came into play. I'm 2/2 for medical killing my job and truly hoping it won't be 3/3. This company does seem more caring than all the others BUT they also have said the same thing the other two companies said. This being "Your health first" before making bullying me out last. I try to add value to my position through finding work arounds for technology issues while developing approved techniques for giving customers extra value when they get me as their rep. Though, given how our 3rd party software locks me out of a lot of job elements, I am not sure if it will be enough to justify my retention. They love my dog but, well, business-is-business.
I'm really just being paranoid. I just wish I could do the surgery now instead of waiting for, how it was presented, the doctor's repair job in office to fail. I believe this is done for insurance reasons. Dang insurance. :(
And if you need assistance with any of your projects, just whistle.
You have already done a great job in helping out with your Snowdrop pic. I need to get that out to the rest of the team so they can see how you are supporting the descriptive audio project.
You've always been a great support, Leon. I'm honored to have you as a friend, colleague, and creative collaborator. I do enjoy what we get up to along with delighting in your inspired stories.
I had also thought that last year's Pony Con was to be the last, but am happy to hear that you'll have something to look forward to amidst the other stressors you're experiencing at the moment...
*hugs*
Nope. This year's BC is the very last one. I've got the team assembled and we're working on some very special projects to make the last convention the absolute best for CWLTP along with therafter.
I'm very much looking forward to no longer having to go from one fire to another. Perhaps getting this done during divorce is best as, well, two bad things at once is better than one and waiting before another. All at once, right? :)
Plus, more importantly, I need to be awesome to keep in good contact with all my pals. *Snugs*
I'm always glad to see you still around. My blindness makes me miss your adorable plushie slideshows.