Poison Eye V - or - Its All Fun And Games Until...

Tomorrow morning, sometime near the butt crack of dawn I’ll be making the trek to Overlake Hospital for my eye surgery. The good news (if there is any) is that the amount of blood floating around has decreased some. This means that overall the vision is clearing up some. The bad news is that we’re able to officially confirm that the impact caused the retina to tear away from its normal resting place.



To explain some of what they are going to do I’ll drop some techy speak on ya cuz I’m good like that. But first here’s a few definitions to keep in mind

Sclera – the white part of the eye
Vitreous Jelly – one of the walls of the eye.
Scleral Buckle – think of it as a fancy rubber band with “doo-hickeys”, or a small belt on a fat kid.

So the game plan in layman’s terms is to put me to sleep open me up and fix my shit. In more complex vernacular here’s the low down:

Vitrectomy
In this procedure the vitreous jelly is removed as well as any scar tissue or blood that has built up. Then they replace the vitreous with special fluid or a gas buble.

Scleral Buckling Surgery
In this procedure a scleral buckle will be sewn onto the outside of the eye. The buckle is a bit like a belt that gets put around the eye and squeezes it together. Officially the goal is to compress the circumference of the eye which will in turn releave some of the traction on the surface of the retina.



All in all it sounds very scary and extremely uncomfortable. Oh and did I mention expensive. Please send money Ma!

At the risk of sounding morbid (fuck you I’m entitled) the above info is the good news. I’m told that the one thing I can look forward to within the next year is for my cataract to go bad. Meaning more surgery.

I can also look forward to wearing a contact lens sometime in the near future. I have been told that the change to the shape of my eye will most likely cause near-sightedness. Having had lasik surgery a few years ago I consider this a big set back. I’ve really gotten used to being able to wake up and see without the use of a visual aid.

I intend to do some drinking tonight. Somebody cue up Three Days Grace for me…