Video games for eye surgeons...I swear to God...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I made this eye bead necklace for my eye surgeon. Dr Rebecca Armour at Casey Eye Institute. She's great. Gave me back most of my vision. Eye beads have been used in history as talisman's to protect from the "evil eye" which is why the theme is so common in beads. ;D

So many cultures thought that you could illwish through the evil eye. Also, beads in the representation of a body type are thought to protect that body type. So this is a double whammy. ;D

The only bead that I actually burned in my torch was the eye bead itself. The rest are store bought glass and mineral on polycoated tigertail with brass accents. But I strung it!

My lampworking teacher, Epona, taught me how to make the eye beads to look so realistic! They are almost scarry. So now I'm having to figure out uses for spotted white beads. ;D

LOL. I had the final YAG surgery for the eye. I was concerned because my little black dot friends from my uveitus in all levels of my depth perception were disappearing from my vision and I couldn't see small text as well with that eye.

I got ahold of the doctor on their cool internet contact system at OHSU and Casey Eye, very neat to be able to just leave an email for a non-emergency and wait for a non-emergency response. I asked, "Do you want to see me this week, or should I just wait until my surgery that is scheduled for June 2nd?" 2 days later they called with an appointment time on my phone. She worries as much about my retina as I do.



I was worried needlessly, It was flatter and less swollen then it has been in 2 years. YAY! So, she was like, "Let's just go ahead and do the surgery now."

???? Eeek!

It was like asteroids for eye surgeons. She gets to point a laser into a mirror and blast it through the new lens and cut the cloudy layer left at the back of the lens pocket in a circle around the pupil so that the light can clearly focus to my retina. There was this little popcorn popping feeling with each laser shot and kind of a small sting....they add up by the way and eventually the little excized circle was going to drift to the bottom of my eye and dissolve over time. Weird stuff.

I told her that she just liked playing asteroids...she laughed.

My eye is now at 20/25 plus2 whatever that means, when it is corrected. That is what it will be for the future at best. This is so much better then the white wall of doom!

from the goddess of two eyes who can see the periphery again when she's not passing out...and that's another story...

Eye strain...and growing tolerant to modern meds

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I'm getting tired of posting these updates...and I'm sure others are tired of reading them. But it beats having to tell you all ad nauseum in person all the health woes of the woefully insane who has Hashimoto's (Fibromyalgia, chronic migraines, diabetes, arthritis, and, and,....bleck).

For those who haven't looked it up yet, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis is another cute imune system disorder that doctors can't really treat. It normally starts with attacking your thyroid, thus the name, but when it's under control in the thyroid arena, it can chose other organs of your body to attack, just like lupus and sarcoidosis are known to do.

Some of the people that I know that have it, are theorizing that mine chose my left eye to attack.

It's as good a theory as any other, since this is exactly the theory the doctors came up with...they were just trying to assign sarcoidosis to it...it seems that the doctors at Casey Eye haven't met Hashimoto's yet. Doctor Dreamy meet Hashimoto's Thryroiditis, Hashimoto's meet Dr. Dreamy. otherwise known as an escapee from the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." (I swear to God it is true! LOL.) I think the doctors up on the hill need to pass a casting call as well as an IQ test and medical school in order to work there. Hmmm! I wonder how that's included in the job anouncement?

But, back to the serious stuff of updates...the vision is at a blurry 20/60 now with my corrective lenses and isn't going to get much better. I can see to do close work illumination and such without my glasses much better than with them. It seems pretty solid that I will end up having the laser outpatient surgery to correct the rest of the blurry vision. I still have a seriously weak eyelid on that side and the eye muscles get VERY sore very quickly with use, but I am trying to push them in order to get the peripheral vision back.

Other than the eye, the meds for the cluster migraines have pretty well stopped working on a daily basis so I am back to most days being at a 8 or 9 on a pain scale. It will probably take me a while to adjust again to that level of pain and the associated lack of conscentration and cognitive function it allows me. I'm trying to avoid the snappiness and grouchies that I know go with the chronic pain in the head.

Been there, done that, I own a closet and dresser full of those tee shirts. It just gets tiring not to be able to think or form a sentence and to have the people around you talk over you and complete everything you say.

One bright spot on this~! with the migraines back I can't really feel the arthritis in my back and the joint degeneration in my neck. LOL

So unless we go 4 wheeling in the woods, or I'm sleeping too long my head is out screaming my spine. The silver lining to every cloud. I still need the meds to get around when my head drops below a 7 or so...cuz the back pain is above that...gee, doesn't THAT make me a fun date at Christmas? LOL And to think my daughter is cringing because she's looking into a possible future...

Love and kisses and blessing to you all from the poster child and goddess of
it doesn't kill you it just makes you wish you were dead

Just a quick eye on it

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I had a call on Sunday from the on call doctor that I went to see on Saturday for the decreased vision in the eye with the cataract replacement. I guess I was the subject of a confab of doctors.

General consensus ended up being that I was to continue to double up the steroid eye drops for the rest of the day but then taper off that evening. But I needed to get to a pharmacy and pick up a prescription for systemic steroids. We ended up leaving the fighter practice and social time at Vindrbek a bit early, but we had to rush to the pharmacy before they closed 'cuz I had to get a whole lotta dosage in my stomach THAT night. Yuck!

I like that the doctors are on top of it, but when they move that fast, it's kind of disconcerting. Especially since I was seeing her the next afternoon.

I have now been told that the pressure in my eye is WAY down (good, good news for someone with the steroids shot in it). But I also now know that the cornea is swollen, the cells are floating in the front, and I have and area of cloudiness that formed with the cataract behind the lens as the cataract was forming that they tried to abrade off of the area during my surgery, but had no luck clearing. So I still have a cloudy layer in my eye and may need another surgery to clear my vision in 6 or 8 months. Again, if we can get the swelling under control.

I also found out why they went for the steroid shots instead of the systemic steroids to start with. THIS doctor actually answers questions. Systemic steroids are known to mess with diabetics blood sugars and to shoot them sky high and so they were holding off on using them as a last resort. They also wanted to have a last resort.

Okay, this treatment finally makes a little more sense. It still sucks that the treatment causes the blindness, but if you don't treat the edema in the back of the eye, you end up with damage to the optic nerve, which they can't treat at all. Permanent darkness.

Think I'll take the white cloud...but I sure wish the doctors had been more forthcoming about things. I've had as much if not more schooling than most of them and I get damn tired of being treated like a mushroom whenever it comes to my healthcare.

from the goddess of mushroomland

Not so Eye to Eye...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
Today I got the scare of my life...my vision started to decrease again in the eye they just did surgery on. I spent 4 hours pacing and rereading, or failing to read, the same set of letters.

I finally called the on call opthamologist. We had to go down there and meet him at Casey Eye. He was a sweetheart and looked up and down and all around in the eye, looked at my chart and the notes and let me and the hubby know that it looked like some pigmented cells from them cutting around the pupil and freeing it to dilate were floating in my eye and obstructing the vision worse than it had been on Friday.

I also had a shocker and learned that my uveitus doctors hadn't bothered to tell me that one of the times they were treating "swelling" in the back of my eye they were actually treating me for a cyst on my retina. I HATE it when doctors don't tell me shit. This is a prime example of why I trust doctors SO MUCH! (Feel the heavy sarcasm?)

I'm home. I need to double up on the steroid drops I'm using and use them twice as often, and I have a whole new set of scarey symptoms to look for, but he really reassured me about how the eye was doing. And the pressure in the eye is down to a normal level from 30 on Friday to 16 today which is WAY good news.

from the two eyed goddess

Eye c's U....

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

It's happened. They cut my eye open like some cavier on a plate... really they did.
I just had to forget that I don't get numb very quickly under the administration of local anesthetic. Ooops!

Felt every cut of the knife as they cut around the cornea to lift it so they could free up the scarring around my pupil. I felt that cutting around the outside of the pupil as well I would swear.

They kept adding more eye drops and more pain meds to my drip line every time I said, "that REALLY is a BIT uncomfortable...translation

THAT HURTS LIKE A MOTHERF***CKER!!!"

Then she asks me to bear with her for just another moment. So I ask for something to hold onto. Two nurses bravely volunteer their fingers...2 and 3 at a time, but then tell me not to break them. ;D They didn't realize it was hazardous duty. I'm supposed to be an old lady. And I don't think they really realized how much the pain meds HADN'T taken effect.

I dropped back to one finger a piece. It's harder to break a single finger by squeezing. ;D

But then the doctor asked for the crusher...which I told her wasn't extremely comforting from the patient's side of things. I'm assuming it's the ultra sound tool that dissolves the actual protein lens in your eye so that the prosthetic one can be inserted. That part of the surgery took about 5 minutes, tops. LOL She's that good.

But I swear I got to watch her reattach something around the cornea, and I was seeing rainbow halos around the cornea and everything was this lovely shade of old blood through that eye yesterday. Cuz of course they drape your face in a lovely blue sterile sheet and tape it so that only the eye they are working on is open to the room. Makes for an interesting viewing arangement...NOT.

At least my arms were free and they took my claustrophobia seriously and gave me some GOOD anti-care pharmacueticals...better than valium according to them...I'd believe it. I really didn't much care that I knew I was all bound up with people all around me and cutting on my eye. Weird stuff.

Also got the financial shock of the week yesterday. It seems the doctor's scheduling department forgot the little detail of the $400 insurance deductible. Ouch! So that gets added to the rest of the medical bills that we've been trying to pay off all year, and I thought we were finally seeing some light!

But today I had the post op check and got the plastic shield off. I have 2 eyes! Binocular vision! I see in 3-D again! I have depth perception!

For those of you that have never been without it. Try putting gauze over one eye and taping it shut for a day or two and seeing what a massive pain in the rear it becomes. You can still see and do things. But you have to feel your way on anything that involves placing a paintbrush, needle, wheel, bead, fire torch, aargh! The list became endless. Made me so appreciate my vision. I may not have the perfect close vision I'm used to when I'm done, but the clouded wall I've been looking through will be gone! I cried.

Dr. Armour says I should wait a week to see Avatar again so that I really can appreciate the full 3-D effect. (More in another post on my thoughts about the movie without the 3-D.) And I have to wait a week for the lampworking as well. Aargh! I have this really cool idea for a necklace for my sister's birthday next week, but I don't even know if it's possible yet. Darn it!

Anyway. My body and surgery were a bit weird (what's new) and the pressure in my eye is a bit high today so I'm really supposed to keep track of stuff this weekend and report ANY loss of vision or increased pain. I added another couple of eyedrops to my arsenal and another appointment to my week next week, but I console myself with the fact that...I've got EYES....

from the goddess of vision...

Eye again...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

No, that is not a pretty starry planet...that is the starry form the retinal scarring took in my eye as of last February. The picture was kindly supplied by Casey Eye for me so I could show the few people who are bored enough to read my blog what it looked like. ;D

The next one down is what it looked like in November. Uveitis and the associated infections have definite effects on the retina of your eye, and in this case on the pupil and iris. It actually scarred the pupil and built up scar tissue that glued itself to the lens.

I've also had to have all the explanations made to me about the swelling (macular edema) in the back of my eye, and they take pictures in cross sections across the plane of my eye socket to keep track of how swollen it is compared to what it should be, or what it was the last time.

This one with the colors is almost like a thermal shot showing the swelling as higher topography across the back of the eye in November. And then a cross section through the actual swelling.

They did the same cross sections in December before they did more of those lovely steroid injections into my eye socket.

You remember. The ones that carried a risk, but that I didn't realize would CAUSE a cataract. Gee! Learn something new all the time...and doctor, why didn't we go with the systemic steriods? I still haven't gotten a good answer on that one.

These pictures in December were just before shot number 3, or was it 4? The cataract was now bad enough that everybody is pretty well admitting they can't see squat through it.

Got the good news on the 9th or so of February when I started writing this that the eye doctors are willing to totally disregard all their own guidelines for macular edema and go ahead with the lens replacement for my cataract after only 2 months of the swelling being reduced in my eye.

My surgeon obviously is worried enough about the edema coming back quickly that she scheduled me for as soon as I could clear my schedule...she wanted me in there the next week.

Somehow it's not as reassuring as I would like it to be. But I guess they are realizing that if they can get the lens replaced while the swelling is quiet at all that then they can keep injecting the steroids into my eye socket as much as they want without further damage to the lens...the synthetic one won't cloud like my real one is what I've been told.

The cataract has gotten bad enough that there is only one machine they can photograph the back of my eye with, and it's the new machine that is only available up at Casey Eye Institute itself. The doctors can't even really see to the back of the eye much any more, and they are even admitting it to me. ;) Go figure. More later....I've actually done it...

from the goddess who sees....

Totallus...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I was told that I had to post. Something about keeping people updated and making people feel like I'm including them in my life...Not that I don't want to include people in my life, but I just don't dwell well on stuff. That big white wall of Dodge Ram pickup truck I still see in my head every time I close my eyes...yes, I totalled my van, or rather, I had some help totalling my van.

I was doing great in the snow, I LIKE driving in the snow, even nowadays...I kept from taking my pain meds, so I'd be alert and was taking it slow and steady and this NICE (heavy sarcasm here) young man, decided that he needed to lose control of his pickup that was travelling in the opposite direction. He SAYZ he was going about 25, like I was...my airbags and body bruises and memory think more like 45. The impact from the front even crumpled the doors down the side of the car, and you can't see it, but the whole engine compartment is askew with the hood sticking out on the driver's side weirdly.

If it had been a sedan that had spun out I could have steered and avoided it. As it was, I avoided his truck cab. But it was the choice of his truck or the oncoming traffic...so I chose the white wall of his truck and I remember making the choice consciously and how time suddenly speeded way up again. It sucked. Until I made that decision, while I was maneuvering and avoiding traffic I had all the time in the world.

I love cell phones. First call I made was to my hubby. After 17 plus years it just seems the natural thing to do. He was absolutely wonderful, but it drove him nuts not to be there to take care of everything for me. Him and my sister. She called every half hour until I agreed to go to the emergency room to be checked out. I swear to God, no lie. Every half an hour. My mom had NOTHING on her when it comes to persistence.

The accident was before dark but I ended up spending 3 hours on Tuesday night on the side of 99E in the snow, with no heat or light in my van waiting for the tow truck. The kid in the pickup got to drive away. Hooray for me.

R met me in Oregon City to get me home from the tow yard, but the traffic advisories said no to going up to see my doctor at OHSU at the top of the hill, suckage. So we stopped at an emergency room on the way home. By that time it was about 10pm and even with my normal load of meds I couldn't lift anything with my right arm, couldn't walk on my left leg and was so stiff that R said I was walking like I was over 100.

They took some scans after we realized that I couldn't lay back and support my head with my neck. All the muscles in my body decided it was time to rebel on me. After telling me I had some good bruises and strains and sprains and giving me some IV pain meds I was sent home to the Gorge, on the closed I-84. Three hours later we made it home coming up SR-14. I finally crawled into bed at about 7am and got a call from my car insurance company at 8am. I wasn't coherent enough to answer. So here's the scoop, the pictures and what went down.

I've slept for 2 days straight. I still can't lift much with my right arm and my bruises are a colorful addition to the winter white of my skin. I've had ice on my left knee for 2 days on and off and have been pretty much taking my pain meds and muscle relaxants with some anti inflamatories. I figure by tomorrow I should be able to go back to some of my PT routines and my chi-gong.

I'm going back to bed to nurse my poor abused body...happy new year to all...

from a puzzled goddess who wishes she could get her van back