It's all in the eyes

Unique objects, our eyes. Showing sorrow, pain, glee, astonishment. I think too many of us take them for granted. That is until something happens.

I've always worn glasses or contacts, since the first grade. I remember the stigma of being a "four eyed" kid in school. Luck had it, my first grade teacher, Mrs Kirkpatrick, was an angel sent down to help me through it. She actually made it a big deal and how special I was to be given my glasses. So I proudly wore them until my grandfather helped me get contacts in high school. Haven't looked back so to speak. I wear my contacts longer then I should-always get a finger wagging when I go in for exams. But so far so good. At some point, when finances and insurance allow, Lasik surgery will be attempted so that I have even more freedom from my nearsightedness.

Meredith has cool eyes. One has a brown stripe running up and down through the center of her baby blues. Ellie has the most beautiful soulful eyes and Alec has these blue grey orbs.

Well to the point, I just came back from having laser surgery on mine. Yeap, it's way cool to do it right in the office but not cool the reason. I've been having progressive vision distortion in my left eye. Got much worse of the weekend. So I called up Dr Smith-the best around and my regular eye guy. Today was an appointment with a retinal specialist. I have what's called POH, or presumed ocular histoplasmosis. Tongue twister isn't it? From our discussions today, I could have been exposed, like more midwesteners have been, to the histo fungus, 10-20-30 years ago. No one knows and that's a mute point now. What I do know its that I have two super minor scars on my right eye, while my left eye looks like a mine field. Over 20 scars with three of worry near my macular. The one that caused me to contact my dr, has started a bleed and that's what the surgery today hopefully stopped. Dr Boldi was pretty up front and very good about explaining the ins and outs of my new problem. I might have some permenant vision loss-a small blind spot from the laser scar. Or if this doesn't stop it, we will need to do some more aggressive measures. But he's pretty hopefull that we nipped it so to speak.

Anyway, I'm wearing my 10 yr old glasses instead of the contacts and can't see clearly with a numb eyeball and dilated eyes. For now I have to adapt to a slight off center feeling and keep a viligant "eye" on my vision should it get worse. I have a little issue working on the computer with the wavy lines in my upper left sight, but that I can manage. I also have a little issue with my balance as it takes both eyes to balance correctly. Ah the joys of it all. The prognosis is good, long term just to watch it and the brain does like the challenge of adjusting to the new sight limitiations. Just watch out when you come at me from the wrong side--I might think you're a monster or worse. No just kidding, nothing more then the line looking crooked and not straight.

For those of you interested here are a few sites to go to for more information. It's a very common thing in the midwest, the leading cause of blindness for those 20-40 years old and can affect you decades after you have had your initial exposure. And no, it's not contaigous!!

http://www.revoptom.com/HANDBOOK/sect5o.htm
http://www.williamsoneyeinstitute.com/theretinacenter/trc_pohs.php
http://mamtasomaiya.blogspot.com/2008/06/presumed-ocular-histoplasmosis-syndrome.html


Well, off to put my contacts back in so I can see to work!

Later gators...
C