Eyebola

So I went to the eye surgeon today, a retina specialist. 

That was fun.

Though, I guess I should give a brief description on how I got to this point.

About the 9^th or 8^th of January, I sneezed several times, rather violently, in a row.  Then I noticed a large “spot” in my vision of my right eye.  I had felt a migraine coming on all day, and just thought it was part of it.  It was one helluva migraine too. Lasted about two days, and then eased off. 

Unfortunately, the spot stayed and was really driving me nuts and really affecting my vision.  (Still is.) So, after doing some digging around trying to figure out wtf was up I found out that one of my migraine drugs can cause Surprise!Glaucoma.  Not exactly what you want to find out. So, I made an emergency appointment with my eye doctor.

He dilated my eyes and discovered I had a mysterious pool of blood in my right eye, almost right in front of the retina and that was what I was seeing.  Because of its location and the fact that we had no idea what had caused it, he referred me to a retina specialist eye surgeon.

So that brings me to today.

They dilated my eyes again and also numbed them. ( I will say that numb eyeballs are a really really weird sensation. ) Then they proceeded to shine incredibly bright lights in my eyes, which to me was pure torture because I am very photosensitive.  After some questions, general exam and bright lights he decided he needed to run another test on me.

So, for the first time ever, I received an IV at the eye doctor.  It was just dye injected into my system so they could take over 20 colour photographs of my eye. (The dye would cause the veins in my eye to glow when the pictures were taken.) So, a needle in the arm AND bright lights once again.  The needle didn’t hurt, thankfully.  I am such a wuss around needles.  (Yeah, I know. I have a tattoo…but there is a difference.)

He actually had to call a nurse in to hold my eye open because I couldn’t keep it open at this point. So, really it turned into some weird interrogation scene from a war movie and man do my eyelids hurt.  

Anyway, the tests showed that there were no irregular vascular issues in my eye, which is very very good.  His final analysis is that basically either my sneezing caused an aneurysm or a blocked blood vessel basically exploded under pressure.  Neither pleasant sounding, but they also wouldn’t permanently effect my vision. 

So basically I have to suck it up and deal with my “blind” spot until it goes away.  Which will mean lots of time pretending to be Corey Hart and wearing my sunglasses at night (and day)and lots of time just resting my eyes after working/reading.   The “spot” is very annoying and distracting and impairs my vision, and makes me very cranky, BUT at least I know it isn’t something more serious.