You Cannot Knit When Your Pupils Are Dilated

You can't. Really. I tried.

I had an interesting day, and not in a particularly good way. On the other hand, I know it could have been worse, and I'm thankful.

Ha ha ha...how do you like my soap opera style writing? Ya know how in soap operas it always takes about an hour for someone to actually TELL something.

Well, for about the last week, I've noticed the peripheral vision in my right eye has been lacking. It was a bit troubling to say the least. This morning I went to the doctor, and after waving her hands around in front of me, she decided I should go see the opthamologist and get an MRI and maybe see a neurologist for good measure.

Yikes!

First stop was the opthamologist, where there was more waving of hands and wiggling of fingers (the technician's, not mine) which determined that indeed...no peripheral vision.

The the dreaded dilating of the pupils. I tried, I really tried to knit for a bit, but after about 5 minutes, the world was blurry and bright and I leaned back and shut my eyes.

In a bit in came Opthamologist #1 who was very kind and as I described my symptoms to him said, "Well, let's check it out, my friend". Sort of like John McCain.

He shone that really bright light in my eyes, looked around a little bit, wrote some stuff down, and told me I had a retinal detachment. Lucky me though, their retinal specialist was in the office today!

Opthamologist #2 came in and did the same thing. Then he did it some more while shoving my eyeball all over the place. Ugh. Not comfortable. I whimpered at one point.

Then he said, "Surgery", and my chin quivered a bit, kind of like the Little Guy right before he cries. Unfortunately, he's leaving the country tomorrow and just in case there was a problem, he didn't want to do it today and then be far, far away. He also told me I did not need an MRI. No brain problem here. Just my retina detacthing from my eye. Come on retina! It isn't enough that my vision is so horrible I have trouble finding my glasses when I set them down?

Thursday morning I have an appointment to have eye surgery. Of course, I'm a little scared and I have all kinds of questions. The only question I thought to ask today was, "Can I go to my tap dancing class tomorrow?" The answer was no, I should avoid activities where I bounce around.

The opthamologist described it as "urgent, but not an emergency". He also drew a nice picture showing me how the retina is detached from the bottom of my eye. So, I need to have surgery soon so I don't go blind in my right eye.

On the bright side, I get to make like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop and say, "It's not a tumor!"

Wish me luck!