osso and her eyes, again

Reading and wincing, then crossing my fingers for you.

Maybe the eye could do with a bit of R&R.
Buy it a Hugh Jackman naturist calendar, maybe.

Goodness....hope it's all back to normal?

Sounds horrible. I hope it clears up soon.

I haven't responded lately since I don't know. The inner lower eyelid is a little to somewhat red (varies back to not), cornea a little red (varies down to not at all), but not like in the first episode, and it is probably still getting the mess from almost 2 weeks ago out of there. I think this might be a normal kind of bump as previously infected chazalion stuff goes, but I'm still uneasy. Meantime I'm ok with access via email to mainguy. Also, I've back up meds at hand at this point.

Even my horribly descriptive noting of having an inch of green glop come out (was that here or to my doctor, I know at least to my doc in recounting the night's experience in emergency - when they still didn't see me) may have been a clearing procedure for the buildup after clogging, thus oddly good, though frightening then to me.

In my continuing reading, I see chalazia, otherwise called meibomian cysts - never heard of them before - are fairly common in urgent care places and emergency rooms. Instead of resenting that they didn't see me, it might be someone handling the tracking got what was going on. Plus had my eye ball actually bulbed out (an apparent end of the line thing that happens rarely) - good thing I didn't read about that first or I would have probably screamed and I'm not a screamer - there was a nurse there pacing around through everybody every so often.

She had tried to help before (I didn't wipe the green and showed her), but the tracking people said no at that time.

You cause me to have lascivious thoughts, but not particularly re that particular guy.

Update, eyes fine today. I guess the last scare was leftover lipid discharge.

I'll be keeping up the eye compresses more seriously than before. I'm gaining in comprehending the patterns..
Now I'm off of running hot water onto facecloths - which is fairly aggravating to do over and over and is water wasteful, and am using a product rather like an eye mask for air travel, except it's plastic, contains little beads that can be microwaved to fairly warm (timing relative to your microwave wattage).
I figured out how to angle it for only one eye, since I have only one bad eye - so I can do that and still read. Otherwise, impatience would reign.
It was about ten dollars at my local drugstore.
Could be restful for others who aren't dealing with blepharitis, but have routine old tired eyes. (Therapearl is the company; Walgreen's carries it under the Wg name, and I suppose CVS does too.)

Routine eye check today:
- visual field tests the same, good.
- measurement of optic nerve, no change from last time, ergo, stable.
- vision same, if anything a little better
- left eye dry, keep on with or use eyemask warm compress even more often to keep the lipids going.
Good as always to see my main ophthalmologist. We managed to talk a little about soccer/football for a minute or two.

The adventure part was in getting there and back. Had a too early van ride from the senior transportation people, nice driver but his radio program was a loudly emotive bible thumper - a little surreal for me at that hour of the morning.

Since I was early, I went to the audiology clinic (have been waiting for them to call me re a getting hearing aids discussion, something about having to check with a senior audiologist). That went fine, appointment in December. Then saw a sign about free flu shots. Went to that office, no flu shots. Ah, well.

After the ophthalmology visit, I called the senior ride people, and got another interesting driver taking me home. This one started off complaining about how noisy motorcycles are and went on from there, you know what I mean? We talked for something like 25 minutes, mostly him talking, saying 'you know what I mean?' about twice every sentence. The funny part is I agreed with him on most of his opinions. We covered the motorcylists in New York story, the water situation related to salmon in northern california, fire ecology, politics, and I don't remember what else. Oh yeah, legalize all drugs or just some. Hmmm.

Thanks for the report.

Now I am really feeling for ya, Ossobuco.

I had a TIA last week...which has left me with residual damage to my sight. My right eye has a blind spot in its center. The peripheral vision in that eye is fine, but the spot is very annoying...and apparent.

If I close my left eye...I would not be able to read anything because the damage is to the area of the focal point. I can see the stuff around that area...but the moment my eye moves to focus on a spot...the damaged area intrudes.

Visual field test showed a large area of uh oh!

The Neuro-ophthalmologist seems to think that the damage is permanent. Right now we are doing ctangiogram scans of my upper chest. The carotid arteries have some blockage...but less than 50%...and they really do not do any clearing surgery unless the blockage is 70%.

I'm not on a full aspirin...and Plavix. Sucks.

That is sucky sucky. Especially since the eye business happened for you fast. It's hard to absorb. (My retinitis pigmentosa is likely lifelong or at least since I was ten or so; I didn't know I was different from other people for a long time. But that's loss of peripheral vision, not central, though that can happen if it progresses speedily). The craziness in 2004 with a bad cataract operation was fast, so I remember what that feels like, a great big ohhhhh ****, oh ****, and oh **** - and that eye is a multiple mess though now fairly stable. I can read this post fuzzily if I close the good eye and put my baddie eye six inches from the screen. Slightly better if I put my trifocals on (usually leave them off in the house). I talked with a woman I'd seen in the eye clinic out by the van pickup area who told me she had macular degeneration in both eyes (central), very tough.

Something to be said for having one good eye, eh? Not to make a joke, I feel for you about this, Frankie.

I'm also interested in your ct angiogram business, how that all goes. I found out I was ok on all that when I had what I was guessing was a TIA in August that turned out to be the gd'm'd bp pill. Not my business but interested in your doctor's advice at this point. I hoping it is as unclogged, to the extent it is, due to your adventures on the golf course.

Meantime I'm sending you some of your favorite wine and/or beer by virtual express. That and I advise a lot of cat petting.

Jo

Glad things are stable for you, osso.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Frank. I hope they don't result in permanent issues.

I need to beg pardon for all I said on the previous page, re the recent ballooning of bad-eye. I've come to understand - just by thinking, that the green goo was the stuff in the pink pig eye getting out, and I probably didn't even need the antibiotic.

The e.r. personnel - aka, an attuned woman who knew a lot, but not enough, but commendable given her resources, took it as an outside infection.

I'd seen a resident (smart) in the eye clinic shortly after all that, who told me it was a chalazion and offered advice re tapering the antibio.

So, scratch a lot of my report on the last page.

Later the resident (who I take is smart but I've been around many smart residents, have taught some of them laboratory stuff, some of that funny) suggested I get a second surgery on the left eyelid. I murmured something, would think about it. No f'n way. That was an odd lapse, I'm usually more straightforward, though not usually saying f'n in these situations.

I hardly ever pray to anything, but long may my present ophtho stay here, he is so good at it, and let not the new smart one supplant him.

I was hoping you would show up, JPB.

Frank, I'll add your news elsewhere, but that is your business to do. Let me know.

osso, Glad you are holding our own.

Yikes! Sorry to hear about both Osso's and your troubles, TIA that left permanent damage? Doesn't sound all that T! I hope they can narrow down the problem.

OMG, Osso, I just read your entries for September. So sorry that troubles continue, although I am glad that your RP is progressing very slowly. Perhaps you'll outlive it.
I'm very sorry to hear of Frank's damage from the TIA. His "blind spot" sounds as bad as macular degeneration (if that's the name of it).
I think I might take up prayer for both of you--and for myself.

Re me, the RP and the glaucoma are stable. There's some optic nerve thinning typical of RP that they got a good photo of a year ago, but I've probably always had that - anyway, that's stable too, no worsening this time. Well, knock on wood. It's the stupid blepharitis that caused the August/September yuck stuff, and that's from all the ops on that eye.

Yeah, I'm knocked out re Frank's problem. Am hoping it's somehow improvable.

Thinking of you and Luchi..
are you still playing your violin? Still painting?

I'm playing the adagio of Bach's E major concerto in a church this Sunday. It's a great background accompaniment to their communion service. And I just contributed two paintings to an exhibit at ASU's campus downtown, Phoenix.
Yes, I'm still active at my age. Thanks for asking.

A year gone by and I'm reporting again.

There's a process to all this stability (knock on wood) - I am seen once every six months, or so.

1) this time I get the usual chart read, and pressure check (fine since something like mid 2005 when it was finally stabilized on Baddie Lefto, back in California, after nineteen types of drops, oh never mind.) But before all that, I was in a mid range place re pressure, and now both eyes are fine on it.

Visual field test.
Visit with main ophtholmologist who throws lights at the eyes. Discussion re all that. I passed, or eyes passed. Results essentially the same on the field and so on.

Lefty is in blind territory, but I can still see out of it.
The good part is results = same.
2) six months later or thereabouts, the nerve test (OCT) and the dilation business. Plus the usual chart thing and pressure and interviews, starting at the front desk and by the next tech.

At the front desk, they always ask if I have fallen. They must re-ask, for good reasons. I have fallen all my life, and they have that well annotated with simple yesses, and fallen more than friends since I was in my teens, presumably having to do with messed up peripheral vision (that I didn't know about) plus myopia, never mind the dark, which is harder, which I didn't know about then either (something like 45 minutes adaption time). I've fallen in all the best places. Good thing I've been bouncy, to date. Years ago, I postulated that I would die by falling into a manhole. Hey, I've not seen those here in Abq. Yet.

Anyway, today was good. I don't know if he leaves time to talk with all his patients - I think that may be true that he has antennae for talk. Not wasteful, but watchful.

I'm the aggressive sort, I asked how he was.