A couple of months ago a new retinologist at my eye doctors practice took a look at my left eye and though it has been NLP (No Light Perception) for quite sometime now lots of new blood vessels ( neovascularization) have formed in the eye, making it pretty uncomfortable.
Anyway this meant laser surgery to destroy those new vessels. I went for my second series of treatments yesterday.
The treatment itself is pretty simple, after dilation of the eye, you lean into the headrest on which there is a laser and optics for the doctor to observe and aim the laser. Then the doctor fires several hundred laser shots into the eye to cauterize the blood vessels and seal them. The whole process takes about twenty minutes. There is some discomfort, eased by my taking some Tylenol a couple of hours prior to the procedure. The doctor can inject pain-killers, but having that done a couple of years ago was actually worse than the procedure and leaves you with a pretty colorful black-eye.
After the procedure, my doctor was pretty up-beat. She had done two sessions of laser in one go, just to reduce any need later to do anymore.
But then came her killer stroke. She said, "OK. Be aware that in cases like yours, past results often predict the future. You will now probably lose the right eye as well."
My heart sank. My right eye has very little peripherel vision, but that is some vision. I do not want to lose that. Here she is saying I will lose that too. Even though the right eye has been stable for about thirteen years, the left was also complicated with a stroke which destroyed the optic nerve blood supply, I now cannot do anything but worry that I can lose what vision I have at any moment.
That is not a good feeling to have as we move into the summer.
Anyway this meant laser surgery to destroy those new vessels. I went for my second series of treatments yesterday.
The treatment itself is pretty simple, after dilation of the eye, you lean into the headrest on which there is a laser and optics for the doctor to observe and aim the laser. Then the doctor fires several hundred laser shots into the eye to cauterize the blood vessels and seal them. The whole process takes about twenty minutes. There is some discomfort, eased by my taking some Tylenol a couple of hours prior to the procedure. The doctor can inject pain-killers, but having that done a couple of years ago was actually worse than the procedure and leaves you with a pretty colorful black-eye.
After the procedure, my doctor was pretty up-beat. She had done two sessions of laser in one go, just to reduce any need later to do anymore.
But then came her killer stroke. She said, "OK. Be aware that in cases like yours, past results often predict the future. You will now probably lose the right eye as well."
My heart sank. My right eye has very little peripherel vision, but that is some vision. I do not want to lose that. Here she is saying I will lose that too. Even though the right eye has been stable for about thirteen years, the left was also complicated with a stroke which destroyed the optic nerve blood supply, I now cannot do anything but worry that I can lose what vision I have at any moment.
That is not a good feeling to have as we move into the summer.
