Retinal Rage, Part II (Electric Boogaloo)

When we last left our intrepid columnist, she had just had her pupils dilated to the size of pie plates and was about to get examined by the retinal specialist, Dr. J. The column ended with her seeing something that she had never seen before. 

First Dr. J. made me put my chin in that holder that keeps your head still and lean forward so that he could look deeply into my eyes. Since this was my first exam, he looked intensely while shining a light into each of them. 

After he finished this part, he had seen a lot. I, on the other hand, was only seeing those little glowing shapes all over the room like you do after a camera flash goes off.

Then Dr. J. asked me to sit back in the chair. I figured that the exam was finished.

I figured wrong.

Dr. J. leaned my chair back—as in waaaaaay back—and he had put on an apparatus that looked like a cross between a miner’s helmet and a jeweler’s visor. It had a bright light on it and magnifiers for my doctor to be able to see well into my eye.

I seriously understated the light when I called it simply “bright.” As he leaned down over me to check into my eyes, he also shined the light of a thousand suns into them. 

Yes—a thousand suns. I think he probably saw all the way into the back of my head. (And if not, remember that I didn’t attend medical school.)

In no time at all, he righted the chair, and I was sitting up again. But now I couldn’t see a thing.

“Um, is it normal to be totally blind right now?” I asked him.

“Absolutely,” Dr. J. answered. “Don’t worry. Your sight will come back soon.”

As he rattled off the results to his assistant, whom we’ll call Boy Wonder, I slowly began seeing blurred blobs, so my sight was coming back.

“I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad new,” Dr. J. quipped. 

Great. Just great.

“The good news is that you don’t have any tears in your retina. The bad news is that you will get one soon,” he said.

Again, just super.

I had to pay attention to my vision, and go back to see him every couple of weeks until the tear happened. If the retina tore, he could fix it. If it detached, he could still fix it, but I would need surgery.

Needless to say, I was overzealous in paying attention to my vision, but I didn’t have to be for long, as during my third visit—the third time, of course, being the charm—I had a small retinal tear.

“But, it’s okay,” he said with a little too much joviality for me. “I can fix it right now. C’mon!”

With that, he leapt from his stool, lab coat flying behind him, and I followed to a nearby exam room.

“Just sit back and relax, and I’ll have this lasered in no time,” Dr. J. said. 

“Wait!” I yelled. (As you may have noticed, I do a lot of yelling when my health is involved.) “You didn’t numb my eye!” I yelled that too. You know, as though he hadn’t gone to med school and didn’t know what he was doing.

“Michele, you won’t feel anything where I’m going to laser,” he explained.

“BUT I’M NOT NUMB!” I replied like a lunatic. 

Hey—I’ve seen the Star Wars movies. If you’re getting lasered in the eye, you need something.

He then put a drop in my eye, which I now realize that I didn’t necessarily need. I think he would have rather put the numbing drops in my mouth. But that would have gotten him into trouble.

In a few minutes, while holding my eye open, he lasered it—wait for it—176 times. Yep. That much.

When that was all over, I got the best news of all: my eye was in great shape. All was well.

“Oh, did I tell you that with patients, if this happens to one eye, it will definitely happen to the other,” Dr. J. said. “Could happen today, could happen next week, could be a year or two. But it will happen.”

Great. Just what I wanted to hear.

Michele “Wojo” Wojciechowski, who luckily loves her retinal specialist and doesn’t mind temporarily going blind when she has to get checkups, writes “Wojo’s World®” from Baltimore. She’s also the author of the award-winning book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box. You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter.

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