Stupid Eye tricks are back

[Notatourist]

She told me about your setback. How are you doing my friend?

Good. Losing 10 pounds in a week is not good, but I am doing better.

[Whazzup]

Regarding her doctor, bru says "I was supposed to see the chief resident and wound up seeing the chief of the retina department. The nurse said I must have a guardian angels and I immediately thought of monorail wings."

Bru sends her love and hugs to you all.

And we send ours back to her.

[Saint March]

UPDATE:

Bru saw the doctor today and she was VERY happy to hear that her retina is in good shape. The blob in her right eye obscuring her vision is literally the back of the vitreous fluid sac casting a shadow on her retina, and some blood as well. He says the blood will dissipate and SOME of the blob will go away. how much? 10%, 50%, 90%? We have no idea. Only time will tell. The good news was though that her retina is healthy and not in danger of falling apart. Her retina was sort of an innocent bystander, injured in the process if the vitreous peeling free from the retina surface.

The other good news was they also didn't subject her to the examination where they literally jam a q-tip like device into her eye to look for tears.

She'll be back to reading, so expect to see her around in the coming days... and if I don't post between now and then,

Merry Christmas to all!

[hobie16]

Excellent news!

Merry Christmas to you and Bru and everyone.

[techie-13]

Yay! Some good news in time for christmas.
Hope it's a good one for you and Bru and your family!

[Whazzup]

Thanks for the update, March. We're all rootin' for Bru's eyeballs to heal quickly and completely. We miss her around here. And you, too. Feel free to post with your own news and comments.
Have a blessed Christmas. Wishing you and Bru all the best for good health and happiness in the coming year.

[GaTechGal]

What wonderful news for Christmas. I hope that Santa has brought Bru some more paint so she can do some more wonderful paintings. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to both of you.

[February]

Hi guys!

Big huge hugs and thanks to all and I hope that whatever you've been celebrating this year you've had a good time doing it.

I don't know, I don't remember adding PVD with Retinal Tear to my 'to do' list for December but somehow it ended up happening.

I was so lucky- my awesome Opthy (who is the one who got me in to see the surgeon who saved my sight to begin with when she wasn't taking new patients) managed to get me into the big retina clinic at the U (I saw him at an office closer to home) within an hour of my leaving him. Then, as I'm not sure if you already know, the chief resident whom I was scheduled to see (fit in as an emergency, the clinic was packed that day) was called away and another man walked into the room- turns out he is the head of the entire department. His picture is beside the picture of my other surgeon on the 30 foot high posters suspended from the ceiling in the new eye center building.

He immediately saw the problem and after diagnosing the extent of it said we needed to fix it immediately- and he did the procedure himself. I have to say I am not a fan of what I know now is called a '360 degree scleral depression' exam- it is depressing believe me *laugh* it went on forever and I have to say has now replaced spinal tap and nerve conduction testing as my least favorite diagnostic test of all time.

Long story short- I'm still not pushing the eye (am monocular at the moment, only using the contact on the left while the right finishes healing) and I went completely without any correction at all for a week so I didn't give into temptation to read (or paint- and yes GTGal- Santa hit a great paint sale at Michael's just before the holiday actually and I can't wait to finish my four seasons series of paintings- I have to put up a new picture of my completed 'summer' one, it's my favorite thing I've ever done). Santa also made a point of bringing me an Amazon Kindle (I was totally speechless) and so I can use the text to voice feature to listen to a lot of things and will be able to download audio books to it too. I'm not worthy!!! I'm not worthy!!!

They say that the floaters (which was actually 'moderate vitreous hemmorhage') will dissipate but the blob- looks like a big floating bubble of vasoline or something right in the middle of my central vision- will stay. They can't do anything about it unless they do a vitrectomy and with my eyes they're not even talking about it being a possibility to consider. So I have to accept that I've lost some of the vision I've regained and also that I will likely lose it on the left too as he predicts in 12 to 24 months the vitreous will separate on the left too. It may or may not tear the retina though- that no one can predict. Now I know what to look for. I thought it'd be worse if it was my retina but then it got worse like suddenly and now I know what it means. They said there was nothing I could've done to prevent this.

Notatourist I am so sorry to hear about your struggles- everybody has had such a rough year I can only hope that 2010 will be kinder to all of you.

I have to go for now and rest my eyes but I just had to say a belated Merry Christmas and send my love and thanks to you all for your continued support. You're the best.

xoxo
bru

[felinefan]

Bru, I was wondering if you have something like Dragon Naturally Speaking, which allows voice to text so you wouldn't have to compromise your vision in order to post. Would that help in your situation?

[February]

I don't- yet! But yet is the operative word and thank you so much for giving me a name to look for. We've been interested in getting a program like this for awhile but never came across an actual name of a product we could afford getting. It's on sale at Amazon too! Hopefully soon I'll be able to use Naturally Speaking. Thank you so much, felinefan!!! I think it will definitely help a lot!

*hugs*
bru