Well Poop

I went back to my amazing opthamologist today for a check-up. My vision hasn't gotten dramatically better, nor worse, since I last saw him in May so I figured things were probably kosher in my defunct eye. I go in, get my crazy eyes on (ie dilated), and wait for the doc to show up. It's always busy there and so I knew it'd be a wait. No big. He comes in and starts looking at my eyes. The right one is looking good, the retina is still a bit swollen, and a cataract has formed, which we knew would happen, but, all in all a good report.

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Then he takes a gander at my left eye, which is now my 'strong' good vision out of eye. He notices that I do have some pretty good lattice degeneration going on in there. I'm thinking, "Ok, is this a problem?" and well, yeah it kinda is. Normally, this eye disease is simply monitored. If a hole and/or tear begins to form then they go in with a laser to fix things. Often, this eye disease does NOT lead to a retinal detachment in most patients; and as Wiki so kindly informed me only 40% of patients with retinal detachment have this issue, which is surprising to me, I figured it'd be higher. As my other eye had the same degeneration and we all know what that led to. So, my doc gives me the option of surgery to laser the weak tissues so as to anchor them in place and ideally prevent detachment. But, of course, there's a catch. There's always a catch...

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The surgery would not guarantee my retina in my left eye will not detach; in fact, it could lead to a detachment if my surgeon were to miss a 'weak spot' that wasn't obvious to him during the surgery. That said if we were to leave my eye be and just watch and wait, I could get a detachment as, obviously, these things tend to happen- with me. So there ya have it. FUN

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My surgeon said it's optional right now and I'm inclined to wait, at least for a little bit, before diving on into surgery. It's not ideal, but, I don't want to risk having two surgeries in one eye! We already have to go there with my right one, and it's not as if having eye surgery is a 'have four eye operations and get the fifth one free' sort of deal. Good news is, I am far more educated about the signs of retinal problems now. If anything at all were to go amiss, I know to contact my doc immediately.

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Here's to hoping my eye will just stay the way it is, at least, for now and if it decides to go, well, let's pray we get to it before my retina detaches. Fingers crossed on this one!