The Eyes Have IT

The Eyes have it. Sunday 3.27.11

I hate eye exams. I could not wear contacts because I don’t like to touch and have someone else touch my eyes. Never have. Contacts were out of the question; had to touch my eye. Laser surgery, has to touch the eye.

That all changed in the last couple of days. Wednesday I when I woke up I noticed that my left eye had a dramatically increased amount of “floaters”, the little pieces of dots and specks that float around in your vision when you look at the sky. I have had a certain amount of floaters since I can remember. This was a marked increase. A rather large floater was right in my line of vision, very distracting. I lived with it on Thursday thinking it would go away. When it didn’t by Friday morning, I called the Ajo Clinic and received an appointment for 2 pm. The Dr checked me over with that tool that they use when you get a pysical, but she was not an eye doctor. She recommended that I call an ophthalmologist. So when I left the clinic I parked in front of the library and checked on line for ophthalmologists. Bear in mind that it was 3:30 on Friday afternoon. After calling several Tucson numbers, “You have dialed the number of Dr ---, we are closed. Our office hours are …”, I finally got one to answer and got an appointment for Saturday at 10 am.

R and I left the trailer at 6am and drove into the doctor’s parking lot in Tucson at a little after 9am. After the usual paperwork I was taken to a room and examined by the technician who used an expensive-looking laser machine that took pictures of the inside of my retinas. The ophthalmologist came in and checked me over. She saw some blood in there so she suspected that there was a tear in my retina. She told me that she could not find a tear but the seriousness warranted that she contact a retina specialist. After a few minutes she told me that she had contacted Doctor H and I would be gettign a call on my cell after she finished surgery.

R and I left the office and drove to the nearby Costco for a much needed hotdog lunch. Afterward, we strolled up and down the aisles looking for items that we needed or didn’t know we needed. As we were leaving the store Doctor H called and set up a time to meet at her office. I put the address into the Garmin and followed Emily (that is what we call her) for directions. We arrived at the address without trouble. Doctor H finished two other emergency patients before calling me into one of her rooms. She checked me out “thoroughly”. After four kinds of drops in each eye she basically manipulated my eye every way but upside down to look (with a Very bright light) into my eyes. Frankly, at dinner over a glass of wine would have been more pleasant, but she insisted on doing it this way.

After much squeezing, pushing and those bright lights, she told me that she found no tear in the retina!!! Very good news! She mentioned that as we age our eyes change too. The liquid in the eye dries up and the eye pulls away from the retina. As it pulls away sometimes it takes part of the retina with it and these pieces are the floaters. Because most of us older folks are instructed by our doctors to take a baby aspirin every day, it is more likely to be some bleeding because the blood is “thinner”. Interesting, huh? So I am to take it easy, no jogging, no boxing for a week or so. Next week we are planning to go to Tucson with a friend so we will have a follow-up appointment with Dr H.

If you read this, pay attention to your body, in this case, your eyes. If you have sudden floaters and especially if there are flashes in your eyes in conjuction with this, call your ophthalmologist immediately. It could mean your sight.