Days 5 - 7: Reality sinking in.
Here are some updated photos. I started looking pretty gruesome. The SCH is caused by tiny broken blood vessels that occurred during surgery or are from the buckle. I was told it looks much worse than it actually is and that its nothing to be worried about- it would just take time to clear up. Time. MORE time. Like everything else. Patience is a virtue. That's what they say....
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| Left: Close up of the subconjectival hemorrhage (SCH) Right: Relaxed view |
I had some bruising (obviously!) all around my eye that made it purple, blue and yellow. I also started having some bruising on the white part of my eye. This occurred as both the SCH and as some yellowing. The small speck in the right photo towards the bottom corner and out from my eye is where they injected the numbing agent that filled my eye during the surgery. My eyelid was swollen, and blinking felt strange. It's hard to describe.
Here is where my posts may be less humorous and more informative (at least for a couple posts maybe), but you can decide for yourself.
I was terrified to touch my eye. When I showered, I wore my sunglasses (yes, the really cute ones), and I covered my face with a hand towel. I was so particular and methodical in how I did it because I was afraid of getting anything in my eye and causing an infection. This was just the start of the paranoia.
Sidenote- patients recovering from this- buy Neutrogena Make-Up removing face wipes. You'll be able to clean your face without splashing water on it. This was the easiest thing for me. Plus they were pretty good in removing the tacky glue marks around your eye from taping the patch on each night.
What my day consisted of:
- Staring at a white ceiling, noticing any flash, flicker, spot or floater in my eye. I swear to you, I became obsessive at analyzing each little thing I saw
- Worrying about if my retina would detach further
- Worrying about if it was going to happen in my right eye
And thus started a multi-week battle with horrible thoughts. It was everything sinking in. All of the doctor's visits, the people, the medicine, all of it. Every little thing. It was now after a whole week of it all building up, it was taking up residence in my mind.
It was about this time that I started feeling like there wasn't anything out there for people who are experiencing this to resort to. To know that you aren't crazy, that you aren't losing your mind, and that other people dealing with this feel the SAME way is comforting. And I couldn't find that.
Charlie, a tech at Dr. Grodin's office, made what I jokingly say was the biggest mistake he could make: he gave me his email address that goes to his phone 24 hours a day. This, for me, was great, for him I felt bad though. (He says he gives it out for patients to use him as a resource if they are worried and that it's ok for me to email him anytime, he's such a wonderful person.) So I decided that I'd email him with some worries. I was worrying about the flashes I was seeing. I quickly saw a response.
Having him as a resource helped, and talking to Ryan and family and friends was somewhat helpful, but no one really knew what was happening and how it felt to ME.
It was hard. Really, really hard.
I couldn't see well to do things, normal things like brushing my teeth were obnoxious, for lack of a better word. I wasn't supposed to tilt my head down, so when I spit the toothpaste out, and rinsed my mouth, I had to let it just kind of run out of my mouth. Then my face had toothpaste residue, ugh- it just snowballed into frustration that I couldn't shake.
Finally- Ryan came home and we were going to the doctor. At least I wasn't alone with my thoughts. I began to hate that each day. Hate is a strong word, but I definitely hated being alone.
On appointment days I found myself so nervous that I couldn't eat. I'd stomach down a granola bar so that I could take my medicines and that would be about it.
This appointment was rough. No change at all. He said it's okay though, that maybe since I had just been in Monday that we needed to space the appointments out more. So we moved to weekly appointments now.
Cue more anxiety.
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