more about the brvo
Oh and I'd also like to mention that prior to this year I'd never actually known someone who had this even though I worked in the medical field for YEARS and docs would check for it every time someone came in with an eye issue.
Now I know two people -- my mom and a tattoo artist friend who owns several tattoo shops.
He had this happen about seven months ago, but he thought it would go away on its own. A month later he finally went to the eye doc and was diagnosed and they started injections.
He has it in both eyes (likely because he's diabetic). His parents are both in wheelchairs, and he's their 24/7 caretaker. He also owns 3 tattoo shops and is an artist himself, so he's a pretty busy guy.
Since this happened, he's only been able to do "bangers" -- small tattoos with only a few colors each. He's hopeful he'll recover fully, but he's been through the full treatment of monthly eye injections (6 is the limit for improvement) and they've started on laser treatments that don't always help.
I haven't heard anything about this on the news or social media, and yet it's becoming so common that the ophthalmologist who diagnosed my mom sighed when he looked at the scan of her eye, walked out into the hallway, called one of his nurses over, and whispered "we got another occlusion, can you get the emergency referral to the retinal specialist going please?"
And when we were at the retinal specialist, there were four other people in the waiting room who were there for the injections (I heard them at the front desk).
And even while my mom got the injections, there was someone in the next room getting them.
So that's five people in the specialist's office just that day within 4 hours that I know of. The place was kinda busy so there may have been more.
Also this can happen in an area of your eye where you can't see it, and you'd never know you had it without a retinal scan.
Those cases aren't nearly as bad because it doesn't threaten your vision, but it's still happening and if you're going in for eye surgery and find it on a scan, they have to postpone or cancel your surgery until they're sure they won't cause another occlusion during surgery.
But yes this is all completely normal 🙄and Covid is nothing more than a cold or flu so I don't know why all these people are getting so worked up about it and forcing me to wear a *gasp* dIaPeR oN mY fAcE! Sheeeeeple!!
Sorry to rant a bit at the end there but my own extended family thinks we're insane for wearing masks and being careful about Covid, colds, flu, and other illnesses even though we have shitty immune systems and there's tons of strokes in my mom's side of the family.
Like I get it if you don't agree. I'm not forcing you to wear a mask. But leave me the fuck alone and stop harassing me and constantly acting like it's an attack on YOU because I want to wear one.
I haven't been sick in over three years and it's GLORIOUS I DIDN'T KNOW LIFE COULD BE LIKE THIS!