About a month ago I saw a shooting star, which was a
particularly strange occurrence given the level of light pollution in my area
and the fact my eyes were shut. The light was fairly bright and travelled down
the right side of my left eye and then vanished. Naturally I did what most
people do these days and googled it to find;
Flashes and floaters happen because of changes in
the vitreous, the clear, jelly-like substance that fills the inside of
your eyeball. The vitreous jelly shrinks as you get older, and
slowly pulls away from the inside surface of the eye. This shrinking and
separation or detachment of the vitreous from the retina is a common
phenomenon, particularly in people over 50 years of age, and causes no retinal
damage in nine out of 10 patients. It is known as a posterior vitreous
detachment.
Bleurgh, I thought and focused on the "nine out of ten" bit
and went to sleep.
The next day in the afternoon I was talking to
the Wife when I realised that I could see my left eyebrow. This is far less
unusual than the shooting star thing, because since my early thirties my body
had taken up sprouting hair from a wide and radical array of places. I'm still
trying to work out what I'm going to encounter later on in life that will
require the white hair that grows from my left ear lobe to deal with it.
It turns out, you will not be surprised to learn,
that it wasn't my eyebrow that I could see, but a blind spot in the top of my
vision. So, as any sensible person would do, I tried to ignore it. I managed
that for all of about ten minutes before panicking and rushing off to the
doctor, who shone a small torch in my eye, and told me to see an optician. This
I also felt was best dealt with by panic, so I rushed off to Accident and
Emergency (the Emergency Ward, for my colonial brethren).
On entering A&E I was promptly called a four
eyed prick, which happens fairly regularly to me on account of my personality
(and glasses), but rarely before I've managed to speak. The gentleman in
question turned out to have Tourette's syndrome which is clearly no
laughing matter. However... this particular chap was describing every person to
walk in through the doors. I sat in that ward for over four hours, and I have
to say he was spot on every time. How I didn’t lose a lung when he yelled “MASSIVE BANGWANGS!” I don’t know.
Eventually
I was told I needed to go to the Eye Clinic downstairs, so bade farewell to “SPOON FACE!”, “SWEAT FLAPS!” and “CAMEL TOE THUNDERCUNT!” and went off to
have a light shone in my eyes for forty-five minutes.
“Hmm. I can see what the problem is. Let me make a quick phone call... Hello, Dr
Kesh? Hello. I have a patient here who’s presenting with retinoschisis. Is it
usual to see holes in the retina? I see. Yes, yes... I can see the veins bulging
over. Ok. Goodbye, Dr Kesh...."
He turned back to me.
"Why are you lying on the floor?"
"Nnnngggg..." I replied.
"You have
unilateral retinoschiIsis which is where the layers of the retina separate and
you can lose some of your vision.”
“Right. So, what is the treatment?”
“There isn’t any treatment.”
“Is this blind spot permanent
then?”
“Oh yes.”
“Well, that was quite casual... Er. So what’s the
prognosis?” I
asked, not actually knowing what the word “prognosis” means, but also not
wanting to sound like an amateur.
“Well, it’s usually bilateral.”
He looked
at my expression.
“That means in both eyes.”
“Which means I'll lose some vision in the other eye?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Also quite casual... Er... Right. Er...”
So let’s
cut to the chase, three weeks later, a lot of sleepless nights and some
significant panic attacks later I was called back for an examination. This time
a different doctor looked in my eyes, then went off, called in a colleague who
looked in my eyes, then had a brief conversation and told me they didn’t know
what was wrong with me.
“It might be retinoschisis, or it might be a
retinal detachment.”
Retinal detachment
is not a phrase you usually want to hear. On the scale of “fuck that” it scores
quite a long way below “malignant brain tumour” but significantly higher than “I
have tickets to Barbara Streisand.” However, since retinal detachment can be
treated, it was actually a better diagnosis than retinoschisis.
The next
day I went to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, where I spent a very large
part of the day having lights shone in my eyes. It was a bit like being beamed
up to a mothership.
“Well it’s definitely a retinal detachment.”
“That’s good.”
“So we’re going to operate.”
It’s funny
how your priorities can change. I can imagine that, sitting there reading this
with your hopefully fully functioning and healthy eyes, the thought of an eye
operation might be curling your toes right now (and if not, wait for it).
Ordinarily, I would probably have reacted by manfully passing out and flopping
on the floor like a landed carp. Instead I said;
“Jolly good.”
“So we’re going to do is called a Viterectomy. Which
involves removing the gel from inside your eye and replacing it with a gas
bubble.”
“Jolly good.” I said, less convincingly.
“It’s done under local anesthetic.”
“FUCK THAT!!” I replied, very convincingly.
“Well, we can do it under general anesthetic if you
think it’s going to be torture for you...”
“What part of ‘sucking the juice out of your eye
and blowing a bubble into it’ sounds like it’s NOT torture?”
“...but most people find local sufficient.”
"You mean I'm being a bit of a girl's blouse?"
"Yes, petal."
Some good
news for both of us here. In the end, I didn’t have this operation, I had a ScleralBuckle and a Cryotherapy Retinopexy, which were conducted under general
anesthetic. Which means I can’t describe what happened to me. I’m sure you’re
very upset.
You may be
wondering how all of this occurred, by the way. I know I was. A little later
the surgeon said to me
“When did you take the blow to the head?”
“Er, I haven’t taken a blow to the head. I'm always like this.”
“There’s a scar on your retina, which looks like
it has been there for some time. Have you ever taken a blow to the head?”
She looked
up from her paperwork.
“I’m sorry?”
“There was... this big penis, you see...” I rather bizarrely decided to continue. In my
defence it was true, and my mum said you shouldn’t lie to doctors.
At this
point she decided she needed a better look at my retina (possibly to make me
stop talking).
“You see, the eye is like a keyhole. It’s easy to
see the back, but you can’t see the sides very well.”
“I see, this is very interesting, tell me more...”
“So to see the edges we have to distort the
eyeball.”
“Stop talking.”
“By pressing on it...”
“WHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA!!!”
Now I have
to say, all of this sounds awful. But in actual fact it wasn’t and I’m
exaggerating for comic effect. Or just exaggerating depending on how funny you
find this. The treatment that I had was first class, the care the best you
could hope for. I haven’t had much pain, the staff at Moorfields were all kind,
and considerate and utterly brilliant. If you find yourself with flashing
lights in your eyes, don’t mess about, go straight to your eye doctor and cling
to their leg until they treat you. The treatment is a breeze – the anxiety and
worry about not knowing what is wrong with you is just awful
I had my
op a week ago, and I’m still recovering. At the moment I haven’t had any more
flashing lights which means the retina now stable. I still have the dark patch,
and that may or may not go away. But it’s in the periphery of my vision and
even if it stays, it won’t impact on my life. Plus the Boy now thinks that I’m
super-awesome because I have a “zombie
eye.” He keeps yelling
“Roll up, roll up! See the zombie eyed freak”
Whenever I
pick him up from school, the little bastard.
This is
for everyone that took time for me. Thank you all.
