We have had some basic medical and dental care here, and we have been super pleased with the care, the availability, and the cost. But, recently, something happened that was much more frightening. I woke up one morning, and most of the vision in my right eye was obscured with a black curtain. I immediately figured that it was probably a detached retina. This calls for immediate and specialized care to save your vision. Was this care available? If it was, would it be successful? What did the future hold for me.?

I’m happy to say that I am 12 days post surgery now and everything looks like I’m having a great outcome! But, lets start at the beginning.

I went to the David Facebook group and asked for recommendations for a doctor for retina problems. Dr Bruno Vega’s name came up repeatedly. I went to Mae Lewis hospital where he practices, but the first available time he could see me was Saturday, a few days out. Unfortunately, the timing wasn’t the best since Joel was traveling to the US seeing his family. But I was glad for the appointment, and for my good friend who was standing by to take me wherever I needed to go. I probably could drive but with my impaired vision and anxious emotional state it would not be safe.

So, I waited, counting down the days, thinking of any other possibilities that wouldn’t be as serious as the detached retina. Do NOT go to ChatGPT for emergencies! I list my symptoms, and it tells me to go to the emergency room immediately. But I already did that. You need to go again, and insist, and say this! Like the ER can just conjure up a doctor out of thin air 🙄 This was stressful enough and ChatGPT only made it considerably worse.

I’ll add some eye information here, to clarity what was going on and why I was so worried. The retina lies against the back of the eye where it gets its blood supply. If it detaches it becomes separated from the blood supply, and will begin to die. The macula is where the information from the retina is fed to the optic nerve and on to the brain. If the macula is also separated the problem is even worse. In my case, I could still see light and color, though it was terribly distorted. But this led me to believe that only the retina was detached and it was still functioning. Trauma and a few other abnormal processes in the eye can cause the retina to detach but in my case, it was the most common reason. There was a tear (actually two) in the retina which allowed the fluid in the eye to get behind the retina, and this caused it to separate.

Saturday finally arrived and I saw the doctor. I immediately felt really good about him. He was kind but thorough, and confirmed that I indeed had a detached retina. He wanted to do surgery on Monday but that wouldn’t give enough time for all the preop testing and evaluations, so surgery was planned for Wednesday. He explained that he would remove the fluid in my eye, repair the tears with a laser, install a scleral buckle, and a bubble of air. The buckle would compress the eyeball, making the retina lie within it more securely, and the bubble would press against the back of the eye to hold the retina in place while it healed. The challenge of the bubble, however, is you have to remain face down so the bubble will float up against the retina, and he expected this to be necessary for two weeks. Yeah, this was a challenge but plenty of people have done it, and I would manage also.

So, now we had a diagnosis and a plan. Joel, thank goodness, made immediate plans to return home. He got here on Monday, but my good friend continued to take me to appointments and help me out while Joel recovered from his all-night travels and prepared a space for my upcoming days face down. I also told some of my friends what was happening and the outpouring of kindness, offers of help, and support was overwhelming!

The next step was preparations and preop evaluations, which I will describe in the next post.