I had my second appointment at the Eye Institute, today.
I had to wait endlessly to be called and had a gigantic coughing fit in the waiting room. Every time I sat down I would start coughing (I have a sort of throat thing). I would get up, go and get some water and the coughing would stop. I’d go sit down and within about 30 seconds was coughing up a lung. I kept assuring the folks “Tickle in the throat, not the FLU!” Finally after about the 4th visit to the water fountain, I was called in to see the doctor. Thank GOD!
After examining my eye, she said that the “damaged area” was smaller than the last visit but still fairly significantly visible. This time, however, when she poked me repeatedly in the eye, I felt it. The last time, the surface of the eye didn’t “feel” anything.
I still can’t read the chart. If anything, that was WORSE than last time. The only thing I could make out was the big white letters on blue which were the name of the program they use for testing eyes — letters about 6 inches high. The actual chart letters were either straight-ish fuzzy blobs or rounded fuzzy blobs.
During the last visit, when she mentioned that there were blood vessels going into the damaged area which, to me, sounded like a “good” thing but this time, the way she said it, it sounded like a “bad” thing. Somewhat confusing…
I was able to drive with no problems on Saturday but Sunday was AWFUL, even wearing the new wrap-around sunglasses. Saturday was fairly overcast but still rather too bright. Sunday was a brilliant day.
She’s given me more drops, this time with a steroid to reduce the swelling and inflammation, on top of the other drops and an ointment, and said that I am to go in again on Thursday. Hopefully, there will be more improvement.
Really, it is rather depressing to feel so unsure about whether there is any change or not, particularly because I can’t see any change. With something on the surface, you can tell when something is healing. With an internal problem, generally, you can at least FEEL if there is some improvement. With this, I don’t FEEL much improvement and a don’t see any improvement in my vision, really. I have to depend on the doctor seeing changes within the eye which won’t make much difference to me for some time… if ever.
At least it gives me something to legitimately worry about instead of having panic attacks over nothing. Oddly enough, I haven’t been anxious beyond just being worried. For someone who becomes nearly incapacitated worrying about things that may never happen, having something to really worry about is less stressful.
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