Taking care of Gracie and Basco, my two 65+ pound doggies this weekend. Their other human is away, so, for three wonderful days they are in my care. It's canine contentment.
Even better, I have a buddy visiting me from Portland this weekend. Marykate, or Kate as most call her. I've known her since highschool. She knows me all too well.
At some point between playing with the pups and eating too many Gummi Bears, I commented on a painting hanging in the house. Said it was crooked, hanging with left side way up, right side down. I thought she bumped into it. She looked at me like I had forks growing out of my ears.
"It's not crooked."
"Yes it is. It's all askew. Just lean over and push it up on the right."
"It's not crooked. Do I need to take you to the hospital? Your perception is all off."
"No it's not. Yours is." (Good comeback).
Later this morning, I moved a couch about six inches in one direction. She saw this and asked me why I did so. Repeat above interchange. She grabbed a tape measure to show me how wrong my view was.
I laid down on the floor with Gracie and Basco and sighed. I listened to them gently snore and thought about how soft their ears were. Their hearing and their sense of smell are the core of their perception. Basco is totally blind. Yet he's completely adjusted to a non-visual life: sniffs & smells the cool air more, can hear the snap of a deer's hoof on a twig outside the house at night, feels the vibrations of Gracie's thundering paws racing on the floor as she bounds up to greet him -- he wags and barks at her.
We are not at the hospital nor are we planning on going. This whole visual meltdown is grating on my nerves, obviously. On top of it all, if we go anywhere, MK's insisting on driving my car because my acuity is off. Worried I might drive into something or perceive that a vehicle or object is actually farther than it actually is. I think she may be on to something and I might have to consider this option while she's here.
At least I can see the snow falling outside. Beautiful even if it is mixed with rain and not sticking to the ground. Hard to believe I'm seeing all of this during the day from my Oakland home. At least, with my double vision, I get to see twice as much of it.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Eye See
Second eye appointment in as many days.
I'm nervous, sad, confused. For the multitude of years I've dealt with my rancid vision, I am a bit distressed that I've had a sudden onset of visual acuity loss (more than I normally felt that is "usual") and double vision -- well, I've had it for about 5 -6 months, but tried to ignore it. At last, four days ago, after struggling with picking up a pen, that is, trying to locate 'which' was the correct implement of the two I saw, I called for an appointment. To give an idea, it's not unlike in the movies when the camera pans into the spy's binoculars and we see two images. However, as 007 adjusts the lens in the center of the field glasses to create one sharp image, I still remain at two, not having been born with a dial resting upon my nose.
It had been about a year since I was last in to see my eye doc so I was due anyway. Because I tend to lose (myopia//nearsightedness) about -.25 to -.75 in my eyes each year, I have to follow up with the optho peops. I love my Kaiser Permanente docs; my sight is awful, not unlike that of, say, an 80 year old, yet I receive full, comprehensive treatment until I can see with finite acuity, or at least to a level that, physiologically, my eyes can manage. Not perfectly with my contacts, but well enough (to what we consider 20/40 or 20/50?).
Now, however, I'm in the waiting area. I'm wearing my glasses. They are thick: Coke bottle thick. I cannot read anything without lenses of any sort unless the text is within a quarter inch of my face. Even then, no promises. I'm dilated. So these words I'm scribbling down are up and down over the line. It's like seeing under water, or so I assume, as I've never had the opportunity to see quasi-clearly underwater like the rest of you folks.
The older couple sitting shoulder-to-shoulder across from me, they're in their 70s, I'd guess, he's a Sikh, and she's in some type of sari. They're staring at me like I'm some sort of car wreck. As if they know it's not right to stare, but they simply cannot peel their eyes away from the young woman with the incredibly bad, bad vision. It's a little peculiar, actually, given that I am in the waiting area of the Ophthamology department. I mean, most people sitting here have some sort of ocular issue. Perhaps it's my age? Am I too young to have these 1/2 centimeter thick glasses? Are the frames not fashionable enough? Is my zipper open? No, just checked. Then I wonder, Who Cares? So, I write.
I've been in and out of this department's doors three times already today: different tests, different exams. On Wednesday, when I first saw my fabulous eye doc, he joked that because of the severity of my eye issues, he truly felt he was earning his salary that day. Today is no different.
When the ophthamology tech called my name for the peripheral test, she looked at the huddle of white-haired people, not me. When the next tech hollered my name for the intra-ocular photos, she too, looked towards the clustered seats filled with seniors. She appeared to be surprised when I popped up and greeted her. "CCCatherine?" Yes, I replied. "Oh, I thought we were going to take some photos for a possible lens replacement." Yes, that's right. "Oh, okay. I figured you were.... please follow me." I understood. I'm younger than the average person with such severe myopia.
My eyes are fully dilated. The Retinal photos of my eyes look similar to a de-shelled and illuminated chicken egg with a vascular embryo still inside. The lens focuses beyond my pupil and shoots images of the macula, nerve, and all parts within, leading to the back side where the retina attaches.
The image is round, not unlike the spherical nature of a standard eye ball. It is glazed in a yellowy hue filled with a mass of interconnected red, spidery vines. There's no real shape, they branch and spread from one tributary to the next. It seems random. the only real form is the photographer's mechanical circumference which is perfect, like a ping pong ball.
Within the right eye -- the still images pop up onto an adjacent computer monitor available for the patients to view -- there is a large messy glob, like gristle or something floating in our soup that we spoon past in order to get to the good stuff below. This whitish dumpling is the macula. It stretches a tiny jet stream finger out to the rear of the eye.
The left eye is not quite the same. It has a similar mushy blob that stretches out into a bumpy jetty towards the rear of the eye as well. However, instead of finding a connection in a thin outer layer, its gnarled line tethers into a granular, peppery pillow.
In the world of clocks and geometry, we would consider the lumpy schmalz - the macula - the central portion, say, from where the hands would pivot. If you imagine looking through the pupil and into the eye, you'd see its girth that spreads out like a fist from approximately eleven to just past five o'clock, or 80 degrees to 260 degrees, (fist-wise, forefinger to pinkie).
The thin white jetty, the ocular nerve, rests on the horizon, or at 180 degrees, and stretches back towards the rear of the eye from the cloudy white mass. In my left eye, it stops abruptly, as if unwilling to collide with this grey boulder - an impendiment to time or movement in my sight; blocking my view of life ahead.
Although both eyes have the bulbous, mashed lump in the center and fairly similar ocular nerves, the left's mirroring of the right's similarity ends there. The left has this alien counter-balance, potentially a cause to my newly formed horrid and double vision. I have lost 25% (-6) vision in the left in one year. Not so good. Viewing this grainy pebble in my eye set me back. I suddenly felt like I was a token in the Parker Bros. game of Sorry: Go Back 6 Paces, back to the ugly gravel that rests near the back row of my eye. Too bad I don't get to start over again all fresh and new.
We're discussing surgery. The opthamology surgeon said that I was "special" -- not as in low I.Q. special, either -- but because of the migraines, severe vision loss, severe myopia, the sudden diplopia (double vision) ,lazy eye (Amblyopia), and bilateral cataracts. (I think the cataracts are the least of my problems.) My eyes are old and rapidly aging. I've been referred to a retinal specialist because of the unknown mass which rests near what she thought was a tiny tear.
Because I wear contact lenses ALL the time, my eyes need to relax, take a natural shape without them. I walked into today's appointment with them on. For the retinal specialist I'll be sans contacts for a week and she will be able to ascertain and determine all the crud within my eye. Yippee!! She may even do the surgery, if need be.
I asked about the lazy eye because I'm vain. Can it be fixed? Yes. Will such a surgery (on the ocular muscles) rectify the double vision? No.
The day threw me off. What I thought would take an hour bled into nearly four. Although I've known that this day would come, I expected it to arrive when I was in my 60s or 70s, not my 40s. I did not anticipate the severity of diplopia, the severe vision loss in a year, the sandy rock near my retina.
And to my friends who know me, do I tell them, 'Hey, you know I can't see, right? Well, it's worse than usual: I can barely see the two of you, and with what I've just learned, I feel like I've just been broad-sided.'
<><>
This weekend I met a man, aged 81, who had ocular muscle surgery to correct his amblyopia. He knew going in that it wouldn't make his vision perfectly aligned, but just two days out, he felt that the two views were closer, not perfect, not one (he knew this would not occur), but closer.
I'd like to say that I feel as if I'm ten times more shaken up than when I learned I'd torn my shoulder apart...again. Most of this, I imagine, is because I have absolutely no control over any of what's happened physiologically. Until I see the retinal specialist (it's funny to say this, since I'll be wearing my glasses which don't give me the best acuity!), most is speculation. My vision has always been my proverbial Achilles Heel and now it's finally kicked my feet out from under my being.
<><>
Today, now five days after my eye appointment, I met again with my doctor in SF and had another battery of lab tests and X-rays to rule out or determine one thing or another. Soon, right? Soon we will find out something. Some thing or cause or reason or idea as to why certain things that I feel shouldn't be happening are. It can only get better from here, right?
I see two sunrises and two sunsets which rise and fall side-by-side. There are two trees budding cherry blossoms, twice as many geese and ducks in the lake, and twice as much rain in my blurry view. But I love the rain, the water, and the sunrises and sunsets really do bring me a lot of peace and joy.
I breathe but one deep breath. It's pouring outside and the wind is gusting cold blasts through my thin windows and blinds. I don't see as much but hear and feel it all. Other senses heightened.
If you can, think positively, visualize, per se, clear vision for me. I'm trying to. Power of positive thinking, right? It can only get better from here. It must. Shoulders down, back straight, Breathe one more breath.
I'm nervous, sad, confused. For the multitude of years I've dealt with my rancid vision, I am a bit distressed that I've had a sudden onset of visual acuity loss (more than I normally felt that is "usual") and double vision -- well, I've had it for about 5 -6 months, but tried to ignore it. At last, four days ago, after struggling with picking up a pen, that is, trying to locate 'which' was the correct implement of the two I saw, I called for an appointment. To give an idea, it's not unlike in the movies when the camera pans into the spy's binoculars and we see two images. However, as 007 adjusts the lens in the center of the field glasses to create one sharp image, I still remain at two, not having been born with a dial resting upon my nose.
It had been about a year since I was last in to see my eye doc so I was due anyway. Because I tend to lose (myopia//nearsightedness) about -.25 to -.75 in my eyes each year, I have to follow up with the optho peops. I love my Kaiser Permanente docs; my sight is awful, not unlike that of, say, an 80 year old, yet I receive full, comprehensive treatment until I can see with finite acuity, or at least to a level that, physiologically, my eyes can manage. Not perfectly with my contacts, but well enough (to what we consider 20/40 or 20/50?).
Now, however, I'm in the waiting area. I'm wearing my glasses. They are thick: Coke bottle thick. I cannot read anything without lenses of any sort unless the text is within a quarter inch of my face. Even then, no promises. I'm dilated. So these words I'm scribbling down are up and down over the line. It's like seeing under water, or so I assume, as I've never had the opportunity to see quasi-clearly underwater like the rest of you folks.
The older couple sitting shoulder-to-shoulder across from me, they're in their 70s, I'd guess, he's a Sikh, and she's in some type of sari. They're staring at me like I'm some sort of car wreck. As if they know it's not right to stare, but they simply cannot peel their eyes away from the young woman with the incredibly bad, bad vision. It's a little peculiar, actually, given that I am in the waiting area of the Ophthamology department. I mean, most people sitting here have some sort of ocular issue. Perhaps it's my age? Am I too young to have these 1/2 centimeter thick glasses? Are the frames not fashionable enough? Is my zipper open? No, just checked. Then I wonder, Who Cares? So, I write.
I've been in and out of this department's doors three times already today: different tests, different exams. On Wednesday, when I first saw my fabulous eye doc, he joked that because of the severity of my eye issues, he truly felt he was earning his salary that day. Today is no different.
When the ophthamology tech called my name for the peripheral test, she looked at the huddle of white-haired people, not me. When the next tech hollered my name for the intra-ocular photos, she too, looked towards the clustered seats filled with seniors. She appeared to be surprised when I popped up and greeted her. "CCCatherine?" Yes, I replied. "Oh, I thought we were going to take some photos for a possible lens replacement." Yes, that's right. "Oh, okay. I figured you were.... please follow me." I understood. I'm younger than the average person with such severe myopia.
My eyes are fully dilated. The Retinal photos of my eyes look similar to a de-shelled and illuminated chicken egg with a vascular embryo still inside. The lens focuses beyond my pupil and shoots images of the macula, nerve, and all parts within, leading to the back side where the retina attaches.
The image is round, not unlike the spherical nature of a standard eye ball. It is glazed in a yellowy hue filled with a mass of interconnected red, spidery vines. There's no real shape, they branch and spread from one tributary to the next. It seems random. the only real form is the photographer's mechanical circumference which is perfect, like a ping pong ball.
Within the right eye -- the still images pop up onto an adjacent computer monitor available for the patients to view -- there is a large messy glob, like gristle or something floating in our soup that we spoon past in order to get to the good stuff below. This whitish dumpling is the macula. It stretches a tiny jet stream finger out to the rear of the eye.
The left eye is not quite the same. It has a similar mushy blob that stretches out into a bumpy jetty towards the rear of the eye as well. However, instead of finding a connection in a thin outer layer, its gnarled line tethers into a granular, peppery pillow.
In the world of clocks and geometry, we would consider the lumpy schmalz - the macula - the central portion, say, from where the hands would pivot. If you imagine looking through the pupil and into the eye, you'd see its girth that spreads out like a fist from approximately eleven to just past five o'clock, or 80 degrees to 260 degrees, (fist-wise, forefinger to pinkie).
The thin white jetty, the ocular nerve, rests on the horizon, or at 180 degrees, and stretches back towards the rear of the eye from the cloudy white mass. In my left eye, it stops abruptly, as if unwilling to collide with this grey boulder - an impendiment to time or movement in my sight; blocking my view of life ahead.
Although both eyes have the bulbous, mashed lump in the center and fairly similar ocular nerves, the left's mirroring of the right's similarity ends there. The left has this alien counter-balance, potentially a cause to my newly formed horrid and double vision. I have lost 25% (-6) vision in the left in one year. Not so good. Viewing this grainy pebble in my eye set me back. I suddenly felt like I was a token in the Parker Bros. game of Sorry: Go Back 6 Paces, back to the ugly gravel that rests near the back row of my eye. Too bad I don't get to start over again all fresh and new.
We're discussing surgery. The opthamology surgeon said that I was "special" -- not as in low I.Q. special, either -- but because of the migraines, severe vision loss, severe myopia, the sudden diplopia (double vision) ,lazy eye (Amblyopia), and bilateral cataracts. (I think the cataracts are the least of my problems.) My eyes are old and rapidly aging. I've been referred to a retinal specialist because of the unknown mass which rests near what she thought was a tiny tear.
Because I wear contact lenses ALL the time, my eyes need to relax, take a natural shape without them. I walked into today's appointment with them on. For the retinal specialist I'll be sans contacts for a week and she will be able to ascertain and determine all the crud within my eye. Yippee!! She may even do the surgery, if need be.
I asked about the lazy eye because I'm vain. Can it be fixed? Yes. Will such a surgery (on the ocular muscles) rectify the double vision? No.
The day threw me off. What I thought would take an hour bled into nearly four. Although I've known that this day would come, I expected it to arrive when I was in my 60s or 70s, not my 40s. I did not anticipate the severity of diplopia, the severe vision loss in a year, the sandy rock near my retina.
And to my friends who know me, do I tell them, 'Hey, you know I can't see, right? Well, it's worse than usual: I can barely see the two of you, and with what I've just learned, I feel like I've just been broad-sided.'
<><>
This weekend I met a man, aged 81, who had ocular muscle surgery to correct his amblyopia. He knew going in that it wouldn't make his vision perfectly aligned, but just two days out, he felt that the two views were closer, not perfect, not one (he knew this would not occur), but closer.
I'd like to say that I feel as if I'm ten times more shaken up than when I learned I'd torn my shoulder apart...again. Most of this, I imagine, is because I have absolutely no control over any of what's happened physiologically. Until I see the retinal specialist (it's funny to say this, since I'll be wearing my glasses which don't give me the best acuity!), most is speculation. My vision has always been my proverbial Achilles Heel and now it's finally kicked my feet out from under my being.
<><>
Today, now five days after my eye appointment, I met again with my doctor in SF and had another battery of lab tests and X-rays to rule out or determine one thing or another. Soon, right? Soon we will find out something. Some thing or cause or reason or idea as to why certain things that I feel shouldn't be happening are. It can only get better from here, right?
I see two sunrises and two sunsets which rise and fall side-by-side. There are two trees budding cherry blossoms, twice as many geese and ducks in the lake, and twice as much rain in my blurry view. But I love the rain, the water, and the sunrises and sunsets really do bring me a lot of peace and joy.
I breathe but one deep breath. It's pouring outside and the wind is gusting cold blasts through my thin windows and blinds. I don't see as much but hear and feel it all. Other senses heightened.
If you can, think positively, visualize, per se, clear vision for me. I'm trying to. Power of positive thinking, right? It can only get better from here. It must. Shoulders down, back straight, Breathe one more breath.
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