This post was originally sent through my author newsletter on March 31st, 2023. To subscribe to my newsletter and receive up-to-date news, musings, and more, click HERE.
We were at the Happiest Place on Earth, and I had a storm cloud in my eye.
"I think I need to call my eye doctor," I told my husband, as we stood in line to ride...was it Prince Charming's carousel, or the Haunted Mansion, or the Jungle Cruise? The timing of that day—our last day at Disney World—is a little fuzzy. As much fun as we were having, I was beginning to worry.
Flash forward twenty-four hours, and I was back home in Brooklyn, in my optometrist's office. He took some pictures and immediately started calling specialists. It was after 5pm on a Friday afternoon, and he didn't think I could wait until Monday to be seen. I was in danger of losing vision in my left eye.
After about half an hour of texts and phone calls, my doctor found a retinal specialist who was willing to return to her office after hours to see a new patient. I raced home, ate a few bites of dinner, and called a car service to take me to the next appointment. Things were moving fast now.
It was a retinal detachment, the specialist confirmed. We'd start the repair procedure right away. She prepped my eye and quickly explained what was about to happen...and before I really had time to process any of it, I was having a bubble of gas injected directly into my eyeball.
Disney magic one day, a needle in my eye the next. Talk about whiplash.
But how did all of this begin?
The day before we were set to depart for Disney, I saw what I can only describe as a bolt of lightning, out of the corner of my left eye. It flashed a few times, and then was gone. Weird, I thought. Once we got to Disney, I saw a few more flashing lights, especially on dark rides (ahem, Pirates of the Caribbean...). I also had some new floaters in my left eye. But I didn't fret too much. I was due for my annual eye checkup in March anyway. I figured I'd bring up these new symptoms then.
But on our last morning at the parks, the situation changed. I woke up with a storm cloud in the lower-left corner of my left eye. It was a foggy, gray area, and around it was kind of a...lens flare. I could see through it, but it was like looking through a really old window-pane. That area of my vision was murky. It was incredibly unsettling, and obviously not something that could wait until my scheduled checkup.
I learned, over the course of quite a bit of googling that day at the Magic Kingdom, that light flashes and eye floaters are signs of a retinal problem, and that a cloud or curtain over the vision may mean that the retina has begun to detach. A retinal detachment is a medical emergency. If left untreated, it can result in total vision loss.
But it didn't quite sink in that that's what was happening to me until I was sitting in the retinal specialist's exam chair, the only patient in an after-hours office where most of the lights weren't even on, having my eyeball injected with gas. I was crying—partly from having my eye poked and prodded, and partly because I was really overwhelmed.
The retina is a light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eyeball. It receives images and transmits them, as electrical signals, to the brain. In a retinal detachment, the tissue pulls away from the blood vessels that nourish it. My detachment was near the top of my eye, angled toward my nose: the upper-right area. That's why I was seeing a cloud in the lower-left field of my vision. One perk of having a detachment in this region was that I could begin with the least-invasive repair procedure, called a pneumatic retinopexy. This involves having a gas bubble injected into the eye to "splint" the retina back into its proper place, followed by one or more laser procedures to seal the tear.
Here's the catch: gas rises, right? So, in order for the bubble to push against the correct part of the retina, you have to position your head just so...for weeks. As my issue was at the top of the eye, that meant I had to remain completely upright (I was allowed a sliiiiight tilt to the left). People whose detachments are on the side or back of the eye have to stay on their sides, or even facedown, during recovery!
Four days after having my gas bubble put in, I returned to the specialist's office for my first laser procedure. It hurt. (This was actually the only part of the entire process that hurt! The detachment itself was completely painless.) The pain wasn't at the front of my eye, which had been numbed with drops, but at the back—like a sharp ice cream headache in my sinuses. A week later, at my follow-up, I was treated to "a little more laser, just to be safe." In the meantime, I was sleeping upright on the sofa ("sleeping" being a very generous term), minimizing my screen time, and figuring out how to navigate my home and then my neighborhood without bending over and with a gas bubble distorting my vision—while also drafting a new book on a deadline.
Spoiler alert: I made the deadline! The book got turned in!!
Also, I was allowed to recline—to sleep in my bed—starting on night 18.
But the bubble...oh, the bubble.
It’s been a little over five weeks since it was put in. The bubble is still there. It is shrinking, bit by bit. That's what it's supposed to do. It will eventually go away on its own.
If you look at my eye, you can't see the bubble. But I can see it. It's like a navy-blue balloon, darker at the edges and more translucent in the center. It magnifies what's in its field, like a drop of water on a camera lens. Light and brightness reflect off its edges, sending rays refracting outward in rings or streaks. At first, the bubble took up more than half of my field of vision. It was like staring at the ocean. Walking made me feel a little seasick. (Fun story: when the bubble was injected, it split, so it initially looked kind of like blue fish eggs. Then, one day, I sneezed hard—and when I opened my eyes, all the little bubbles had coalesced into one big one!) Now, the bubble is much smaller. It's kind of like a marble, floating around. And sometimes, little bubbles break off and whiz around in my eye before attaching themselves to the main bubble and orbiting it like satellites.
At my latest follow-up appointment, my specialist was pleased. Everything is healing as it should be, which is such a relief! Also, the bubble should be gone very soon. (Hooray!)
But that doesn't mean my vision will go back to normal. The floaters that got in when my retina detached—they're there to stay. My left eye will forever have specks and spots floating (and sometimes zipping) around inside it. Supposedly, my brain will eventually get used to it and stop seeing them, in the way that we don't see our own noses even though they're always in our line of sight. There may be other vision changes as well, things I can't fully assess until the bubble is gone. And I'll have to get checked every six months or so, to watch out for recurrences and new issues.
Why did this happen to me? The short answer is, who knows? Retinal detachments can be caused by trauma to the eye; I didn't have that. Other risk factors include diabetes, previous cataract surgery, and advanced age, but I don't fall into any of those categories either. I am highly nearsighted, and myopia is another risk factor. So, it's possible that over the past year (since my last annual eye exam) my retina had begun to deteriorate, and then I rode a roller coaster at Disney World, and...bam. Detachment. But that's speculation. The important thing now is that I have someone keeping an eye on my eyes.
It hasn't been an easy month. (And again, I may have had the easiest type of retinal detachment procedure to recover from!) I'm not through it yet. But fingers crossed, I'm on my way back to reasonably good eye health.
Have you ever dealt with anything like this, or has anyone in your family? Any words of wisdom for me as I move past the acute phase and into the aftermath?
~Kathryn
What I'm:
Reading: I finished In the Woods and started another audiobook, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. This book, about a woman chemist in the 1960s who ends up hosting a groundbreaking cooking show, was really buzzed about last year. I'm enjoying it so far!
Watching: How are we feeling about season 3 of "The Mandalorian," folks? I feel like the pacing has been really strange from episode to episode, but as of this week, the various plot threads are starting to come together. Plus, it's always great to see Katee Sackhoff (Bo-Katan) on my TV!
Snacking: Last call for the best candy of the year, aka Cadbury Mini Eggs! I ordered a few extra bags, since these will be impossible to find until approximately next February.
Loving: I got to observe another author visit at my daughter's school this week! This time, it was Lee Bacon, who spoke to the 4th graders about his book The Last Human. I have a batch of school visits of my own coming up in a couple weeks, so I relish each and every time I get to observe another author doing their thing! It's so inspiring.
