This picture pretty much sums up how I felt. I was not allowed to remove my patch myself. We're on our way to the doctor's at about 8am.
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| Beauty at its finest. Sarcasm at its finest. |
Again, I sit in the waiting room. They call me back and have me sit in a nice, dark room. FINALLY.
The tech takes off the patch very slowly. The tape tugged a little which caused some minor pain, but overall that wasn't too bad. She blots away some goo (I don't know the technical term) and I crack open my eye for the first time since surgery. It's goopy and crusty. The first thing they do is ask me how my vision is. Well wasn't that a silly question- I was looking through goop! They took my visual acuity, since looking at the screen, I was reading at about 20/200. I was practically legally blind in that eye. They tested my acuity (which will tell them what my eye is capable of seeing through lens correction aka GLASSES) and I came up at about 20/60. They use a pair of pinhole glasses. One side is blocked out and one side has a bunch of little pinholes on it. You look through one pinhole and that allows you to see clearly (provided your vision can be corrected). They were happy with that, so I was happy with that. Took the pressure of my eye- that was good, too. No glaucoma- PHEW! And they didn't have to test it with the puff of air- they used a touch-less machine. That is so much better.
I was passing all the tests with positive news. Now onto the part with the doctor.
I sat in the chair in another room, he told me to put my chin on the rest spot on the machine he'd look in my eye with, and I would end up hearing great news. My eye was still dilated, so he took the SUPER bright light and looked all around. There's a motion he uses. He'll tell me to look up, up and to the right, up and to the left, all the way left, all the way right, down, down and to the right, and down and to the left. However, my eye did not want to move around.
"Look up for me."
I tried.
"Go as far up as possible."
I strained as hard as I could and got a little further up. The same thing happened no matter which direction I looked in. I could feel the buckle around my eye. The only time it felt as okay as it could feel given the circumstance was when it was straight forward.
He pulled the equipment away after examining my eye and said words that I would cling to for weeks.
"The buckle looks great. It's in perfect position. No sign of any infection or further tears. And the fluid is 50% GONE."
I couldn't believe it. After 3 days of stress, anxiety and worry, I received good news. It was about damn time. 24 hours later and the fluid level had dropped so much!
The fluid I'm referring to is the subretinal fluid that leaks behind my retina due to the tear. When the fluid leaks behind, it can cause it to detach, which is what happened to me. Now there is a hole/tear, which is allowing fluid to flow through freely. In order to fix the problem of the detached retina, the fluid has to be drained 100%. Once its drained, he would be lasering the retina down with the same laser that he used on my right eye. This would create the scar tissue that would adhere the retina to the back of my eye.
My medications all started that day. I had to do each drop about 2-3 minutes apart so they didn't all mix together. I had to eat with my pills. My morning routine was shuffling out to the sofa from my bedroom and laying there with the TV on and my pile of drugs on the table next to me.
I'd eat my granola bar. First predinosone pill. Gulp of water. Second pred pill. Gulp of water. Third pred pill. Gulp of water. I waited to do the diuretic until last. That pill was BIG. A sigh and then the pill. Bigger gulp of water.
Eye drop time! I became a master at dropping them in my eye without looking, after all, looking in the mirror wouldn't help, I couldn't see. So everyday, for the first half hour of they day, I got all my meds done. This was routine for about 2 weeks. And I realized it became nice to have a routine with it. It helped. With the drops, everyday, at the same time, I put them in. 8 am. 12:30 pm. 6pm. 10pm. Some days knowing those time stamps would make the day pass faster, especially once I watched everything on TV (which isn't hard, there is never ANYTHING on. What are we paying so a much a month for anyway??).
I started experiencing the side effects from the medicine the first day I started them, as I mentioned in the post before this. The only plus side of things was that the prednisone did give me some energy, so aside from not being able to take a nap, I kind of enjoyed that part.
Note to other RD (retinal detachment) sufferers: have someone help you! My husband got out my pills each morning for me, made sure I had my drops right next to me, got me my pillow and blanket, water, etc. He made sure it was all right next to me since it was hard for me to see. He also cooked. He did all the shopping, cleaning, everything. I had granola bars for breakfast (easy to leave on the table and open up) and then for lunch I ate frozen meals. It was much easier to do that than try to make something else. Also- don't ever forget to bring your dark sunglasses they give you WITH YOU. I was so grateful I brought them with me. Also, you will probably find yourself wanting to wear them inside. Don't worry, that's ok, I did it almost all day for the first few days. It made me happier.
Day 1 in summation: not too bad! I was surprised. Other people may feel differently, but the prednisone kept me from feeling a lot of pain. It kept he inflammation down and I was able to lay there and watch TV pretty easily. Looking at my phone was hard. Siri dictated a lot of messages for me. I considered firing her after a day or so because she just doesn't listen sometimes...
The tech takes off the patch very slowly. The tape tugged a little which caused some minor pain, but overall that wasn't too bad. She blots away some goo (I don't know the technical term) and I crack open my eye for the first time since surgery. It's goopy and crusty. The first thing they do is ask me how my vision is. Well wasn't that a silly question- I was looking through goop! They took my visual acuity, since looking at the screen, I was reading at about 20/200. I was practically legally blind in that eye. They tested my acuity (which will tell them what my eye is capable of seeing through lens correction aka GLASSES) and I came up at about 20/60. They use a pair of pinhole glasses. One side is blocked out and one side has a bunch of little pinholes on it. You look through one pinhole and that allows you to see clearly (provided your vision can be corrected). They were happy with that, so I was happy with that. Took the pressure of my eye- that was good, too. No glaucoma- PHEW! And they didn't have to test it with the puff of air- they used a touch-less machine. That is so much better.
I was passing all the tests with positive news. Now onto the part with the doctor.
I sat in the chair in another room, he told me to put my chin on the rest spot on the machine he'd look in my eye with, and I would end up hearing great news. My eye was still dilated, so he took the SUPER bright light and looked all around. There's a motion he uses. He'll tell me to look up, up and to the right, up and to the left, all the way left, all the way right, down, down and to the right, and down and to the left. However, my eye did not want to move around.
"Look up for me."
I tried.
"Go as far up as possible."
I strained as hard as I could and got a little further up. The same thing happened no matter which direction I looked in. I could feel the buckle around my eye. The only time it felt as okay as it could feel given the circumstance was when it was straight forward.
He pulled the equipment away after examining my eye and said words that I would cling to for weeks.
"The buckle looks great. It's in perfect position. No sign of any infection or further tears. And the fluid is 50% GONE."
I couldn't believe it. After 3 days of stress, anxiety and worry, I received good news. It was about damn time. 24 hours later and the fluid level had dropped so much!
The fluid I'm referring to is the subretinal fluid that leaks behind my retina due to the tear. When the fluid leaks behind, it can cause it to detach, which is what happened to me. Now there is a hole/tear, which is allowing fluid to flow through freely. In order to fix the problem of the detached retina, the fluid has to be drained 100%. Once its drained, he would be lasering the retina down with the same laser that he used on my right eye. This would create the scar tissue that would adhere the retina to the back of my eye.
My medications all started that day. I had to do each drop about 2-3 minutes apart so they didn't all mix together. I had to eat with my pills. My morning routine was shuffling out to the sofa from my bedroom and laying there with the TV on and my pile of drugs on the table next to me.
I'd eat my granola bar. First predinosone pill. Gulp of water. Second pred pill. Gulp of water. Third pred pill. Gulp of water. I waited to do the diuretic until last. That pill was BIG. A sigh and then the pill. Bigger gulp of water.
Eye drop time! I became a master at dropping them in my eye without looking, after all, looking in the mirror wouldn't help, I couldn't see. So everyday, for the first half hour of they day, I got all my meds done. This was routine for about 2 weeks. And I realized it became nice to have a routine with it. It helped. With the drops, everyday, at the same time, I put them in. 8 am. 12:30 pm. 6pm. 10pm. Some days knowing those time stamps would make the day pass faster, especially once I watched everything on TV (which isn't hard, there is never ANYTHING on. What are we paying so a much a month for anyway??).
I started experiencing the side effects from the medicine the first day I started them, as I mentioned in the post before this. The only plus side of things was that the prednisone did give me some energy, so aside from not being able to take a nap, I kind of enjoyed that part.
Note to other RD (retinal detachment) sufferers: have someone help you! My husband got out my pills each morning for me, made sure I had my drops right next to me, got me my pillow and blanket, water, etc. He made sure it was all right next to me since it was hard for me to see. He also cooked. He did all the shopping, cleaning, everything. I had granola bars for breakfast (easy to leave on the table and open up) and then for lunch I ate frozen meals. It was much easier to do that than try to make something else. Also- don't ever forget to bring your dark sunglasses they give you WITH YOU. I was so grateful I brought them with me. Also, you will probably find yourself wanting to wear them inside. Don't worry, that's ok, I did it almost all day for the first few days. It made me happier.
Day 1 in summation: not too bad! I was surprised. Other people may feel differently, but the prednisone kept me from feeling a lot of pain. It kept he inflammation down and I was able to lay there and watch TV pretty easily. Looking at my phone was hard. Siri dictated a lot of messages for me. I considered firing her after a day or so because she just doesn't listen sometimes...
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| Those are my awesome shades. I LOVE them. That is not sarcasm! |
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