An Eye Opening Experience

Warning – if you are squeamish, you may want to skip this month’s entry!

The next time you hear someone say they have to do something and you are certain you could NEVER do the same thing, stop.  Never say never.  You really don’t know what you can do when you have no choice.  It might be taking care of a relative who needs your help or dealing with a personal fear or delicate situation.  You think you can’t, but I’m here to tell you that I thought so, too, until I realized that I could.

In my case, that means that every month I go to a retina center and get injections in my eyes.

INJECTIONS?  Needles in my eyes?  Oh, hell, no, I can’t do that!  Or so I thought.

Let’s start with some background.  Last fall, after noticing some obstruction in the vision in my right eye, along with flashes, I went to the eye doctor.  After some tests – in particular the one where I was asked to read the lowest line I could see on the chart and I responded with “What chart?” – I was diagnosed as having wet macular degeneration.  I knew I had had dry macular degeneration, but my eye doctor was "keeping an eye" on it, so to speak, and I was taking special eye vitamins designed to ward off the advancement of wet macular degeneration. 

Some clinical info here:  The macula is the part of the retina responsible for central vision and enables you to see color and fine details and to read.  Having an obstruction there causes your sight to deteriorate significantly.  In wet macular degeneration, abnormal blood vessels in the area swell and leak, which causes the obstruction.  In my case, the obstruction in my right eye – which, for me, is the eye that reads (the left sees distance only) – was so bad that I could not see, no less read, the chart.  And so, the doctor said, I would have to have monthly injections in my right eye.

Oh, hell no, was my first thought.

The next thought was that they would have to knock me out or tie me down before I could stay still enough for a shot in my eye.

But off I went to a retina center, where they do this stuff all of the time.  The doctor there told me that had this situation happened 20 years ago, I might have lost my vision.  We agreed that I was lucky to have it discovered now, so I could have a series of injections that are designed to stabilize the eye, and, if I am really lucky, to improve my sight.

After more tests, dilating both eyes and taking pictures of them (accompanied by the instructions from the tech, “Don’t blink, don’t blink, don’t blink.  OK, blink,” which is way harder that you’d think), it was determined that I have wet macular degeneration in BOTH eyes!  That meant I would have to endure monthly injections in each eye – one week in my right eye and the next week in my left eye – for the foreseeable (no pun intended) future.  Oh, joy.

For someone who is a photography buff and prides herself on being able to spot a typographical error at 50 feet away (“Is that an extra space between the second and third words?”) this struck me as a real disaster.  I read and write constantly, and the idea that my vision could get worse was terrifying.

Soon, I found myself in THE CHAIR, where they put numbing drops in my right eye and left me – otherwise unanaesthetized – alone for the next five minutes, contemplating my escape route, unable to see much of anything, while the drops went to work.  How can you tell when your eye is numb?  It’s not like going to the dentist and getting that GIGANTIC injection in your jaw to numb you.  It’s not like feeling your mouth fall asleep and slurring your words.  It’s your EYE, and you have NO IDEA if this shot is going to hurt.

I pictured a needle the size of a bazooka coming at me for the shot.  But first, they inserted something in my eye to keep it open.  The fact that I couldn’t feel that device was a good sign, but even better was the fact that my vision from my right eye was so bad that I actually couldn’t see the needle, either.   And so the doctor approached, said, “Take a deep breath,” and it was over.  Fast, painlessly, over.  Definitely not as bad as I thought.  But not something I would recommend.

I wish I could say the procedure is flawless each time, but it isn’t.  Once I really did feel the shot, so now I get a numbing shot before the actual shot along with the numbing drops.  I don’t at all understand how a shot before the shot will stop the second shot from hurting.  What about pain from the first shot?  Again, it’s good that I can’t really see these weapons of destruction coming at me, or I might bolt from the chair.

Sometimes after a shot I feel grit that seems as large as a boulder in the eye.  My eye tears, and I have to use warm compresses.  And I can't plan to go anywhere after the injection since I can't see well enough to drive or even to be driven.  Then, the last time I had the injection in my left eye, the doctor nicked a blood vessel.  The white of my eye immediately filled with blood, making me look like the children of the damned, with the bright green of my eye completely surrounded by red.  I wore a patch to Weight Watchers so I wouldn’t gross out anyone and was immediately teased about being a pirate! It took nearly a full week for the red to disappear and for my eye to look normal again.

I have emerged more than once from the injection to go to the waiting room, where someone is waiting to pick me up, only to realize that I can’t identify them because I can’t see.  And then I have to go to the desk to make another appointment, when checking my calendar in my phone is akin to reading the missing eye chart.

But the good news is that my each of my eyes is not just stabilizing but actually improving, at least according to the pictures.  I now know how to use my peripheral vision to see the chart, where I can identify some of the letters, even though they seem to be moving all around (straight lines are no longer straight to me because of the obstruction).  But at least now I can see the chart and can read some of the letters.  Meanwhile, my very stable left eye, which was caught so very early, aces the test every time.  I still have to go every month, but the doctor says that eventually that span may be lengthened.  And I am improving, which is the main thing. 

The points of this story are simple.  First, don’t think you CAN’T do something, because when you have to, you really can.  Second, the anticipation is always worse than the actual event.  Third, don’t ask me to thread any needles these days, although, let’s face it, I couldn’t see well enough before to do that, either.  Fourth, if you find more typos in my emails, texts and social media posts, let’s just attribute those errors to my currently poor eyesight (although I can see distance, so I am OK to drive).  And finally, I’m lucky that I can afford the treatments (which cost $3000 per injection, thankfully covered largely by insurance) and that there are treatments at all.  As the doctor initially told me, 20 years ago there was nothing available to treat this condition, and I would have lost at least some, if not all, of my eyesight.  So I am lucky to go once a month and get shot.

See?