The Epic Saga of Something In My Left Eye

Remember when I was freaking out because I thought I was going blind? Well, after a couple of tests, it looks like I’m not going blind just yet. The field of vision test showed my peripheral/side vision on both of my eyes was fine, meaning my glaucoma hasn’t gone out of control. But the glaucoma was really the least of my worries. I was worried more about my left eye that seemed to have turned wonky since the annual eye exam I had with the Optometrist in late February.

I told the Optometrist about the issue with my left eye the day I had the field of vision test. He looked at it with his fancy doodad and told me that I had Something going on in there. He sent me over to the Ophthalmologist (eye physician/surgeon) the next day who also told me the same thing and who then sent me to an eye clinic to have a test done to see what really was happening. The test was fun. It involved an injection of some kind of dye into my blood stream that made my pee look like highlighter ink for the rest of the day. That was early this month. Yesterday I finally met with the Specialist at the eye clinic and he showed me pictures of the mysterious Something in my left eye. You’d think that by now that Something would have a name. Nope. It’s just Something, it happened, and he wasn’t sure what caused it.

Next came the part that freaked me out the most: the treatment. When the Ophthalmologist gave me his early diagnosis, he already told me that the treatment would likely be either laser or eye injection. I was really hoping that I would get the laser treatment because, seriously, who wouldn’t get freaked out by the prospect of having their eye stabbed with a needle? The Specialist told me that he could laser Something and be done with it, but it would mean I’ll have to live with a permanent blind spot for the rest of my life. If I went with the eye injection option, there’s a good chance that we’d be able to get rid of Something after about six injections in six months. Who wants to have a permanent blind spot? Not me! Eye injection? Bring it on!

Of course there is a catch. There’s always a catch. The injections are not covered by the provincial health insurance plan so we have to either pay it with money from our own pockets or try to get Troy’s work insurance to cover it. One injection costs either $80 or $1,800, depending on the drug. Troy’s work insurance didn’t make it easy for us to get them to cover the $1,800 drug, so for the first injection, I went with the least expensive option. We bought the drug in a syringe from the prescription shop, brought it back to the clinic where they froze my eye and gave me one eye drop after another and soon the Specialist came to see me again and gave me the shot.

It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. It felt like getting poked in the eye. I’ve had my eyes poked before, though mostly by accidents. Then it just felt like I had an eyelash stuck in my eye for the rest of the day, which was rather annoying. But this morning I woke up with my eye feeling like its normal self. No improvement in vision from what I can tell but I wasn’t expecting a quick improvement anyway. They’ll conduct another test on my eye after a couple of more injections to see if it does anything. And I have an appointment with the Optometrist on Monday, just to have him look at my eye to see if I’ve developed any kind of infection from the injection.

And that is the condensed version of the Epic Saga of Something In My Left Eye so far. I really can’t wait for it to be over!