Looking It Over

It’s a matter of perspective…

Patch designed for right eye: Much more comfortable.

The eye patch isn’t just a style statement. (smile)

I wear the patch because my right eye sees a world by Van Gogh. Where my left eye sees a vertical door frame, my right sees the frame descend, bend to the right, then back again to the left, and then down. Chairs and the stepladder across the room lean a bit to the left.

This metamorphopsia is a bit confusing, to say nothing of the bits of debris or “floaters” that appear to be birds, or birds that appear to be floaters, or “bugs” on the windshield that can go either way.

The patch reduces all this noise to my brain, which, we’d all acknowledge, is just a little noisy anyway.

I’m very fortunate that I responded when and how I did to the “curtain” that slid partway across my vision as my retina tore away from the back wall of my eye; that I had immediate access to advice from the great clinic responsible for cataract surgery on my other eye; and that there is a surgical center specializing in eye surgery near where I live.

Once the retinal tear was diagnosed, I was sent directly to the surgical center and the procedure was that same afternoon. As I understand it, they removed the liquid from my eye, which allowed the retina to settle back down against the back wall. The retina was then “spot-welded” back in place with a laser. Then they filled my eyeball with gas to hold its shape.

Over the next few weeks, the gas that keeps my eye round will be absorbed by my body and replaced by my own vitreous liquid. It’s very weird looking out through the gas/liquid bubble (think the window in a carpenter’s level) and seeing the boundary slosh back and forth. And there’s a bright haze where the gas refracts differently than the liquid that will eventually displace it as my eye heals. I don’t know if that’s a cataract or some other defect.

The doctors believe this retinal tear was age-related. Apparently the latticework that holds my retina in place had grown thin and delicate. I don’t remember any blows to the head, or pain, maybe a flash of light here and there but… hey. This could have been so much worse.

I had to lean forward and stare mostly at the ground for two hours after surgery. Some people have to lie face down for weeks. My left shoulder complains about having to sleep on my left side for the last ten days. The couch I sleep on for support is both long and soft enough that at least I can sleep. I bump into things and people coming up on my right side, but with the patch, I don’t even have to explain. Despite the “bendy” vision in that right eye, I have vision and there’s a possibility it will improve.

Many suffer a much greater catastrophe, completely losing vision and / or the eye.

That’s not to say this hasn’t been scary. It was a long, long trip home with one eye, some of that drive at night with even the “good” eye providing slightly distorted images as a result of the still incomplete cataract repair. I drove uncharacteristically slowly.

With one eye not working, thoughts about what life could be like without the other eye are never far from my mind. There’s the fact that the retinal tear is “age-related.” My eyes are the same age.

So I’m selling my electric unicycle, and I now wear protective glasses almost everywhere.

That’s not just a “style choice,” either.