Week 9 Post-Op: Glasses Half Full

March 23 - 28, 2013

Four months ago, I walked through the same doors as I did yesterday. On that day, I had no clue what would be in store for me. No clue what I would face over the following four months and beyond. I didn't know any of the amazing people who I've come to adore, who have been instrumental in my recovery. I had no idea I would be sharing this with anyone willing to read about it.

To my surprise, I would battle two surgeries. I would end up face down for an entire month. There would be foreign matter in the form of a C3F8 gas bubble floating around in my eye for almost 9 weeks. Let's be real here, I didn't even know what a C3F8 gas bubble was, OR that it could end up in my eye. By the way, that gas is actually called Perfluoropropane. Just in case you were dying to know...



I had no concept of the severity of my condition, or the urgency. Being whisked away, less than two days after diagnosis, into an operating room was overwhelming to say the least. But, here we are.


Yesterday marked four long months of patiently (and impatiently) waiting to be able to see. Now, I still have a unique black spot in my vision that is totally different from what I was seeing with my detachment. That will take more patience, an NSAID eye drop, and time, to go away. However, I have had my eyes refracted and have been given back the gift of sight. I will have functional glasses!

Since the first surgery, I had been unable to see more than two inches past the front of my face. My right eye learned to compensate to an extent, but there is a reason you should have two functioning eyes- they are both very useful, and not so much as individuals, but as a pair.

Four months ago I walked out of those doors terrified and on my way to another doctor for a physical. I felt a fear I'd never known until then. A complete fear of the unknown and my vision's fate in someone else's hands. Yesterday, I walked out with the ability to see again. Without a detached retina. Without sub-retinal fluid.

I still have a conscious fear of the unknown. That fear did not present itself until that day when I was diagnosed, and unfortunately, I do believe it is here to stay. But it doesn't consume me. I can tolerate it and tell it to quiet down now. In so many ways, this whole experience has changed my life, my outlook, and my future.

When I pondered what to call this blog, I kept coming back to "two weeks."  It was supposed to be two weeks of being face down. But that changed. On the other hand, two weeks applied to so much throughout this process, even prior to creating the blog. Two weeks to prepare for my second surgery. Two weeks after my first surgery, pain really started setting in. Two weeks since my most recent visit. Two weeks of good news until bad news started setting in after the buckle surgery. Two weeks of trying to break the habit of always looking down.

No matter what it was during the past four months, two weeks was, without fail, 14 days; 336 hours; 20,160 minutes; 1,209,600 seconds. How those seconds, minutes, hours, and days were filled always changed, and it was just that. They always changed. No matter how fickle the world seemed to be, you could always count on the time passing consistently, constantly. And even when I wanted it to freeze, it kept going. Then when I wanted it to fast forward, it kept pace.

Here I am now, with a budding business, my one-year anniversary just around the corner, and a hell of a lot to be grateful for. I am still working on getting my life and body back to normal; my arthritic joints are slowly becoming less creaky and stiff. Simple things like driving are possible again. Though not being behind the wheel was rather enjoyable when I think about it.

In one month, I will return to the doc for another milestone appointment, to see if it is all still holding up as it should.

Special thank you time:

Dr Grodin, for his compassion, skill, and patience in fixing me and my bum eyeballs. He is the most caring, genuine doctor I have met. He gave me my vision back. I am forever indebted to him for that.

Charlie, Sandy, Jessica, Kendra, Heather, Christina, Nancy, and every single tech, receptionist and doctor I had the privilege of meeting at Katzen and Dulaney Eye Institute, for all of their compassion, care, and help to make this experience easier and more bearable. Charlie, in particular, for going beyond what I would have expected, to help in any way possible. All of the countless, worried emails and calls; the obsessive, over-analytical questions I asked him. There was never a single question that went unanswered, a worry left to fester. He and everyone else were so encouraging.

Ryan, for being the most supportive and loving hubby out there. He made my recovery and healing possible, I wouldn't be where I am now without his love and help.

My parents, for all of their love, support, and help. It was, after all, a team effort those first few days, post-second surgery.

My in-laws, for their love and support and delicious dinners.

My friends, family, for the thoughtful gifts, cards, food and encouragement. I value every single gesture.

Keiko, for being the sweetest, furriest companion to sit with me at home. There is something to be said for animals helping you to heal.

I will end this post with one piece of advice: if you must have a retinal detachment, try to do it in the winter- who wants to ruin summer with this crap??

From start to present.

Week 8 Post-Op: I Can See Clearly Now the Bubble is Gone

March 14 - 22, 2013

While the bubble is becoming smaller and smaller, its movement changes and it hides every now and then. The light bouncing off of it isn't as dramatic, and it's become more of a nuisance that anything else. At this point it's so small that it is doing nothing to help hold my retina in place. Meaning that it's holding on its own.

When the bubble was larger, it would move smoothly, and more like fluid. Since it has become very small, it moves more abruptly. The slightest eye movement causes a quick jump in its position, rather than a slow shift when it was larger. Rattling around quickly and frequently with every movement. Sometimes it would disappear for a couple minutes, and would fool me thinking it had gone away for good. Where it was is a mystery to me, but it kept coming back. The picture below is how it looks as a very small bubble. 

The bubble bounced around all the time.
The dark spot has become smaller but is still there.

The dark spot has become smaller since the day after surgery when I first saw it. I have been having OCT scans done, and that helps the doctor monitor the swelling, which he believes is the culprit for the spot in my vision. I am on an NSAID drop that is helping to reduce swelling and make it smaller. Eventually it should disappear and return to normal! I just have to be patient.

On Friday, March 22, 2013, after eight weeks and two days, my bubble was gone. I waited to see if it was just hiding, but no- it was officially gone! 

Week 7 Post-Op: To Dye For, Part 2

March 8 - 13, 2013

The results: 

Everything looks great. PHEW. It was amazing to hear that. Now the results of the FA test were immediate, so I had them last week. But I did not have a copy of the photos from it. Here they are below (you will probably want to click on them to enlarge the image and see the areas the arrows point to):

In the photo above, the pink arrow points towards the optic nerve. That is where the nerve that leads to the brain, that takes what your eyes see and allows you to form an image of the world around you. The white arrow points towards the macula, responsible for your ability to see faces, read books, drive, and well, basically do anything. It looks like a darker gray/black area. The blue arrows point towards the areas that were lasered. They appear as dark gray and black markings. I received laser around all of the lattice that was towards the perimeter of my retina. I also received a "peppering" of laser on the detached area. This leads me to the green arrows. You can see my demarkation line where the fluid was filling in a pocket underneath of the retina. This is the point to which the detachment reached. Lucky for me it did not hit the macula. That would have been a very bad situation. It is often harder to restore vision or attach a retina once it detaches from the macula. Here it is zoomed in below:

Here it is in black and white. Again, you can see the lasering on the perimeter as well as the macula, optic nerve, and demarkation line. The other veins stemming from the optic nerve feed blood to the retina to allow it to function. This test usually reveals if there is a blood-flow issue. Luckily for me this time, I had no issue. 

So there's the end of last week's appointment. A clear test and was told to come back again in a week. That leads us into today, March 13. 

Nothing but good news! Dr. Grodin says it looks great, everything is flat and fluid-free, no tears, no problems! I have started getting "fish eggs" and they are disappearing quickly. Now that this has started, the bubble will start dissipating very quickly. Here is a rendition of my first fish egg (the bottom would be normal vision, and the top obviously the bubble vision):

The first fish egg bubble came about Sunday, and disappeared in two and a half days. I then got another one this morning, and that one has since gone away as well. They typically stayed right around the large bubble, but often bounced around on their own. Very strange but actually pretty cool. 

Dr. Grodin anticipates that the bubble will go away by the end of the weekend. That would be amazing. I can then snip my warning label off and be free of the bubble. I was also told, for the first time in 4 months, that I don't need to come in for an appointment for TWO WEEKS. That will be the longest stretch of time that I have gone without going in to see the doctor. Pending that next appointment goes well, I will then not have to be seen for a month. Then three months, then only every six....

We'll see how it goes, don't want to get ahead of myself. I will also have a refraction appointment in two weeks (right before my appointment with Dr. Grodin) to see how well we can do correcting my vision. That *could* end in getting glasses. Again, we'll see what happens. 

But here we are. I am the closest I've been in months to being back to normal. Just a little while longer...

Week 6 Post-Op: To Dye For, Part 1

March 1 - 7, 2013

The trepidation of every lingering complication or new problem makes itself known every morning before a doctor's appointment. It doesn't care if I am almost certain nothing is wrong. It doesn't care if I'd like for just one of my appointment days to allow me to eat more than part of a granola bar. Nope. That fear does not care at all.

I have been in a routine since the beginning of this in November. Each week I have an appointment (most of the time on Thursdays), and each week was the same drill. Either a fluid level check or a bubble size check. I have a dark spot in my vision that has been there only since after this second surgery. Dr. Grodin never suspected anything physiologically wrong with my eye, but had mentioned once the bubble was gone, we could do photos (like last week) and a dye test. I had not expected to be doing these things yet, since my bubble, as of March 7th, was still less than 10% but had yet to fish egg and is surprisingly still a nice size. 

March 7th. I thought it would be another appointment just like those before. Come in, get my eye dilated/examined and then sent on my way. They wanted to do photos again. That was fine, I had that experience last week, not a big deal. But then Sandy said that I would be getting an FA Test. Hmmm....

Fluorescein angiography. An organic dye would be injected into my arm and would make its way to all of the tiny capillaries and blood vessels in my eye, allowing Dr. Grodin to examine the blood flow to my retina. This was being done to rule out any physiological reason as to why there was a dark blob in my vision. 

Poor Kendra. I met her for the first time that day. Her job there is to stick people all day long and then execute the photographs. Sandy told me she was great at what she does, and gets most people on the first stick. All that was running through my mind? She's going to have met her match with me....

If you can recall, when I had my second pre-op physical, the nurse stuck me twice and still almost didn't get enough blood. And I left with a bruise the size of Texas and the color of tar. My veins are deep, they roll, and they're small. A nightmare for anyone trying to draw blood, honestly. 

I warned Kendra that I'm a hard stick, and told her all about the various ways people have used to try to draw blood and insert IVs. She evaluated my arms and decided to go into the left first, on a vein that seemed it would have been a good one. Unfortunately, the vein was small and as we tried to push the dye in, the stupid little thing blew out. It did not surprise me in the least. There wasn't enough dye in me to do the test, so we would need to try again. While we sat there holding the injection site, my arm starts to turn yellow. It's as if someone was slowly taking a yellow highlighter and coloring gently on my arm. Creating layer after layer of yellow markings. The photo below was taken after my appointment. I did not alter anything in Photoshop in this picture other than cropping. That yellow is real!

One hour post blood draw. 

So the first arm was a pain, yes. The dye had leaked under my skin and for about five minutes, I had this burning and stinging sensation in my entire forearm (a completely normal reaction to the dye). Kendra felt so bad, but like I said, this didn't surprise me, it wasn't her fault. We swapped arms, giving the right one a shot (pun intended). No go. Couldn't even get in the vein. 

At this point Kendra felt so terrible about sticking me so much, despite me telling her that it is my veins' fault, not hers. She says she's going to try once more, and then Dr. Grodin will be brought in. She aims for the vein in my hand that seems like it would be a good shot. Unfortunately that one won't bleed for her either. She tells me I'm the first patient all day that she has not stuck on her first try. Leave it to me to be the anomaly! 

"He's going to come in here, and watch him get it on the first try," Kendra jokes. 

Dr. Grodin comes in.

"I'm going to wrap this really tight," as the tourniquet constricts around my upper arm. 

"Wow, you weren't kidding," I blurt out. 


"But I'm only going to try once, so if we don't get it we'll do the test another day."


After pumping my fist and the doctor tapping on my hand for a minute, he tells me to be very, very still. In case you didn't know, a needle going into the back of your hand feels much different than your forearm. Your hand skin hurts much more. 

He hits the vein (on the first try, like Kendra said he would) and tells me not to move a muscle. 

With four bandaids scattered between my right arm and left arm and hand, I'm all ready for the photos. This special machine photographs inside of my eye, and to me, seemed almost like a regular camera flash. I sat my chin on a rest and looked in whichever direction I was told. Every time a photo was snapped, a flash went off, which resonated slightly in my vision, but aside from that, was not a big deal. 

If you ever wondered what it would be like to have your vision turn colors, have this test. 

After it was over, my vision was dark, I could hardly see out of that eye. A few minutes later it was a vibrant, fire-engine red. Minutes after that it was a calm cyan blue. Then it began to turn yellow after that. By the time I left and had my exam, the color was back to normal though. 

We would find out through these photographs, if there was any issue with my retina and its blood flow. 

Week 5 Post-Op: The Other Side of the Lens

February 21 - 28, 2013

Slowly hoisting myself out of bed each morning, I creak and hobble into the kitchen for water. Four weeks in the position I was in takes its toll. My body feels like a shell of its former self. Sitting for too long, or frankly not moving for too long, makes my joints tense and sore. I have been given the ability to understand what arthritis feels like at the ripe age of 25! Lucky me. It has been slowly getting better, but just like it took four weeks to cause this wreck, it will probably take just as long to restore it to as close to normal as I can get. My knees sound like sandpaper if they stay locked for too long. Shoulders, ankles, hips, elbows, wrists (and basically any other joint) pop and crack all day long. BUT they are doing so in a vertical position, so it's hard to complain.

It's strange that only one week had passed since that amazing day when I was given my life back. 

I definitely underestimated the level of frustration I could reach with this bubble. It is only in one eye but may as well be in both. The distortion of light and shadows off of the bubble make doing things like reading painstakingly obnoxious. Grocery stores, with that horrendous overhead, fluorescent lighting, cause dizziness like you wouldn't believe. And now bending over (this one is the kicker) makes a wave of dizzy nausea wash over me like a tsunami. Never would have guessed that one; not after being face down for so long would I think that returning to that position, even if briefly, would make me feel like I was barrel-rolling on a roller coaster. 

If the light hits in just the correct way, what look like branches of a tree seem to dance in my eye.

Thursday, February 28: Another appointment down. No tears, fluid, detachment. I'm passing with flying colors. And this time I was able to experience having photographs taken of the inside of my eye.

Every time Dr. Grodin does something new to my eyes, I'm always amazed at the technology. At the medicine. And there I sat. With my chin on another rest, staring at another light. Except this one was different. It was more like a television than a bright white strobe being blasted into your eye, that generally renders me unable to see anything for a few minutes. This was a red screen with an "X" in the center. All I had to do was look at it. Watch it change with some bits of green, then a new pattern of red lines. Boom, done. Photos complete. Pretty fascinating.

Everything checked out and I was sent on my merry way. Another week of waiting for the bubble to go down. I was at about 10%. No fish eggs yet. I even asked about that.

"Does everyone get to experience the fish eggs??"

"Yes, that happens to everyone."

"Oh good, I really want to know what that looks like."

Just wait. There'll be another photoshop generated image of this roe that will be floating around, don't you worry.

Oh and when your surgical warning label breaks, zip ties fix that. But they can also scratch you during showers or sleeping. WATCH OUT. 

Swelling still decreasing. Redness decreasing.
Eyes are almost the same size.
Still wearing my warning label...