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Left-Eye Blind
Mar. 6th, 2019 08:38 pmMy left eye has been failing. I had Lasik surgery 17 years ago, and that gave me close to 20/20 vision in both eyes. After a lifetime in birth control glasses, this was a godsend. But middle age started to get to them a few years ago, and for the last two years, I've worn glasses when I've felt it was warranted. Mostly when I was driving or watching movies. I didn't need them to read or for working with computers.
That changed about a year ago when I started noticing that my left eye was getting the worse than the right eye. Mostly I noticed this when I was cycling and had to shoulder check. Turning my head left and, at speed, and under less-than-ideal lighting conditions, I found I wasn't really spotting things that I should have. Still, it wasn't obvious that anything was wrong.
Four months ago, I finally concluded that my "new" glasses weren't cutting it, and went back to my optometrist. Turns out the left eye had gotten a lot worse. So much so that she wasn't willing to give me the prescription that the charts told her since it would make me feel like I was in a fish bowl. Plus, my right eye hadn't really changed. She told me to try it out for a month and then follow up with her.
After a month I went back and she rechecked my eyes. In one month, my left eye had gotten noticeably worse. So much so that she felt there was nothing she could do for me. Since I'd been to Gimbel Eye Centre to get my Lasik done, she said I should consult with them and she referred me to them. The theory at the time was this was a complication of the Lasik surgery combined with the hardening of the cornea with age, such that the geometry of my cornea had changed and I was now severely astigmatic.
Note that at this time, I couldn't really read anything with my right eye closed, regardless of the distance, but I could actually see double with one eye closed!
While I was on vacation, they called my office to set up an appointment. My first day back, I did that and got an appointment for today. Gimbel being about halfway between work and my house, I walked there after work. Note that they told me that they were just going to map my eye surface and told me that I wouldn't need to be dilated.
I checked in and was rapidly sent through a battery of tests that baffled the tech specialist I was with, so she called in her supervisor. The tests baffled him. Finally, they decided to dilate me to get a really good look at my eye, and to call in the optometrist - the same one who had zapped my eyes 17 years ago.
Now remember, up to this point, I was still assuming this was a geometry problem. The optometrist examined my eyes and quickly corrected me of that. I have a rapidly progressing cataract in my eye. "I can barely make out your optic nerve" he said.
I'm wondering why my original optometrist didn't spot something this obvious. In fact she said "Good news - you have no sign of cataract". Bah.
Now along with the diagnosis, he went into the causes, the treatment, and my good luck in the timing. Apparently Alberta Health sets a schedule for cataract surgery for each year. They reassess the budget for this in late February to see how many more they can perform in March (when the financial year ends) and Gimbel was given a bunch more slots a few days ago. The doctor figured mine was going fast enough ("If I wait six months, you're not going to see anything out of that eye but whiteness") to bump me to close to the head of the line, and to get my surgery done before the end of the month.
So now I go for more mapping next week, and my surgery is on the 27th. And according to the councillor who set my appointment, cataract surgery isn't that much more complicated than Lasik surgery and has equivalent recovery times. Yay. There's always the possibility of complications, but I basically can't use one eye now, so I have literally no reason to not do this, and not do it right away. Frankly, if the doctor said "We can do this today", I'd have jumped at the chance, and I'd be recovering at home right now.
Basically, this all happened so fast that I didn't have time to panic about it. Not that I'm not panicking about it now, it's just that I'm already strapped into the rollercoaster and there's damn little I can do about it now, except power through it to the end. I'm sure I'll have more than a few anxiety attacks in the next few weeks.
I know a few people who have had this surgery at my age or younger, so I might quiz them about it. Which is odd given cataracts are generally an old person problem, and I'm not that old. The doc did say it wasn't that uncommon with younger folks, though he did say that when old people get it, it tends to be slow and when young people get it, it can be fast - like "I woke up and I can't see" fast.
After all this, they sent me on my way. I started to go back to work, but being barely able to see due to the dilation of my eyes, I quickly changed my mind and went home instead. I'm making an executive decision that cataract diagnosis counts for a sick day. I figure this was a good call, since my ability to program a computer without being able to see the text isn't great.
And now I wait.
That changed about a year ago when I started noticing that my left eye was getting the worse than the right eye. Mostly I noticed this when I was cycling and had to shoulder check. Turning my head left and, at speed, and under less-than-ideal lighting conditions, I found I wasn't really spotting things that I should have. Still, it wasn't obvious that anything was wrong.
Four months ago, I finally concluded that my "new" glasses weren't cutting it, and went back to my optometrist. Turns out the left eye had gotten a lot worse. So much so that she wasn't willing to give me the prescription that the charts told her since it would make me feel like I was in a fish bowl. Plus, my right eye hadn't really changed. She told me to try it out for a month and then follow up with her.
After a month I went back and she rechecked my eyes. In one month, my left eye had gotten noticeably worse. So much so that she felt there was nothing she could do for me. Since I'd been to Gimbel Eye Centre to get my Lasik done, she said I should consult with them and she referred me to them. The theory at the time was this was a complication of the Lasik surgery combined with the hardening of the cornea with age, such that the geometry of my cornea had changed and I was now severely astigmatic.
Note that at this time, I couldn't really read anything with my right eye closed, regardless of the distance, but I could actually see double with one eye closed!
While I was on vacation, they called my office to set up an appointment. My first day back, I did that and got an appointment for today. Gimbel being about halfway between work and my house, I walked there after work. Note that they told me that they were just going to map my eye surface and told me that I wouldn't need to be dilated.
I checked in and was rapidly sent through a battery of tests that baffled the tech specialist I was with, so she called in her supervisor. The tests baffled him. Finally, they decided to dilate me to get a really good look at my eye, and to call in the optometrist - the same one who had zapped my eyes 17 years ago.
Now remember, up to this point, I was still assuming this was a geometry problem. The optometrist examined my eyes and quickly corrected me of that. I have a rapidly progressing cataract in my eye. "I can barely make out your optic nerve" he said.
I'm wondering why my original optometrist didn't spot something this obvious. In fact she said "Good news - you have no sign of cataract". Bah.
Now along with the diagnosis, he went into the causes, the treatment, and my good luck in the timing. Apparently Alberta Health sets a schedule for cataract surgery for each year. They reassess the budget for this in late February to see how many more they can perform in March (when the financial year ends) and Gimbel was given a bunch more slots a few days ago. The doctor figured mine was going fast enough ("If I wait six months, you're not going to see anything out of that eye but whiteness") to bump me to close to the head of the line, and to get my surgery done before the end of the month.
So now I go for more mapping next week, and my surgery is on the 27th. And according to the councillor who set my appointment, cataract surgery isn't that much more complicated than Lasik surgery and has equivalent recovery times. Yay. There's always the possibility of complications, but I basically can't use one eye now, so I have literally no reason to not do this, and not do it right away. Frankly, if the doctor said "We can do this today", I'd have jumped at the chance, and I'd be recovering at home right now.
Basically, this all happened so fast that I didn't have time to panic about it. Not that I'm not panicking about it now, it's just that I'm already strapped into the rollercoaster and there's damn little I can do about it now, except power through it to the end. I'm sure I'll have more than a few anxiety attacks in the next few weeks.
I know a few people who have had this surgery at my age or younger, so I might quiz them about it. Which is odd given cataracts are generally an old person problem, and I'm not that old. The doc did say it wasn't that uncommon with younger folks, though he did say that when old people get it, it tends to be slow and when young people get it, it can be fast - like "I woke up and I can't see" fast.
After all this, they sent me on my way. I started to go back to work, but being barely able to see due to the dilation of my eyes, I quickly changed my mind and went home instead. I'm making an executive decision that cataract diagnosis counts for a sick day. I figure this was a good call, since my ability to program a computer without being able to see the text isn't great.
And now I wait.
