more cornea problems.
This post is definitely not for the squeamish. Lots of icky eye stuff.
The eye doctors found problems with my cornea today at my one-week follow-up appointment. There were wrinkles in the cornea, which were causing distortion similar to the keratoconus was. Obviously not we were looking for in a cornea transplant with the intent of curing keratoconus. Dr. Price said that it was because of the backing of my own tissue behind the donor tissue. When they "pushed down" the cone of my bad cornea, it made wrinkles. When they saw me right after the transplant there was just one, and it was below my line of sight so it didn't matter. But after a week of healing, more wrinkles had appeared. I had noticed last night when I was driving home from Gateway that if I closed my right eye, I was seeing the same old distortion as I used to with keratoconus, just not quite as bad. The lights had multiple halos, high contrast areas had multiple images (just one though, instead of dozens like before the surgery). I had thought that maybe this would go away as my eye healed, but Dr. Price decided today that more needed to be done to prevent that. He decided to put a big air bubble in the back of my eye to smooth out the wrinkles. But the problem with a big bubble was that it could cause problems with drainage of the eye, so they were also going to use a laser to make a tiny hole in my iris, the colored part of my eye.
Didn't have to make an appointment to come back or go to a hospital or anything. They did at the laser center across the hall. First another doctor, Dr. Feng, put some drops in my eyes, to numb it and to constrict the pupil. I sat in a chair with another laser, similar to last time but not quite as big and scary. He pushed the machine forward to press what he called a "contact" against my eye, to hold it open I suppose, and then I had to hold my eyes very carefully in the correct position so he could make the hole. Because my left eye is so lazy, this took some adjusting and struggle. It also was not as quick a process as the laser cutting on the day of my cornea surgery had been. I believe he fired that tiny laser about a dozen times. Each time I felt a little jolt of something like electricity. Even with the numbing drops, it stung a little bit. The first time startled me so much that I accidentally squeezed my eyes, which I knew was a problem. Fortunately it did not dislodge the "contact."
It was a difficult and uncomfortable procedure, but it actually turned out to be easier to then what happened next. I laid down on a padded table with a cushion under my knees and my head carefully positioned, just like before with the laser, but this was not for the laser--it was so Dr. Price could manipulate my eyeball. (I know that sounds really gross when I put that way, but that was what was happening.) I had to wait quite a while for Dr. Price to come. In the meantime Rex put a WHOLE LOT of numbing drops in my eyes. It still wasn't quite enough to deaden the feeling completely, unfortunately.
As my left eye had cleared up, I had actually gotten a little bit of vision with it. It was still very blurry, but I still enjoyed being able to see something useful out of it for the first time in ten years. Now there was a bright white circle of light with a green dot directly in the center right above my left eye. I kept my eyes closed while I was waiting, but the light still made a circle in the darkness inside my eyes.
The whole time I was thinking about driving home, and what I wanted to do when I got home. There were lots of things I needed to do. I thought about the next chapter in the fiction story I'm writing right now, the character's motivations and relationships, that sort of thing. I was hoping I might be able to write 2500 words today. I don't think that's going to happen now, though I'm at 725 already. But this isn't that story. It's another chronicle in the ongoing saga of my cornea chronicles.
So anyway. Dr. Price finally came. More numbing drops, and he propped my eye open with a speculum and warned me to very, very still, looking directly into the light. I could feel it when he injected the air into my eye, though it didn't hurt--I just sort of felt the discomfort and pressure of the needle. Instantly, the ring of light went distorted and blurry, like my vision had been during the cornea transplant in the OR, so I knew what I had happened.
But that wasn't the end of it. Then Dr. Price started actually rubbing my eye, "massaging" he called it, to try to get rid of the wrinkles. This hurt a little, but was mostly just uncomfortable pressure. But my eye felt fat and bloated from the air bubble, and I was almost scared that it might pop.
Then there started these little bitty metallic noises. He was taking out and replacing some of the sutures to make the cornea lay flat again. Each little "ting" of metal vibrated through my eyeball and the speculum. Did I mention that I was just as terrified as I had been with the laser? My breath came in short little pants and I was absolutely frozen in position, doing my very best not to move even the slightest little bit. Dr. Price said when I did wiggle, it was like "an earthquake up here," and one of my involuntary movements actually undid a stitch so he had to do it again. And again, my left eye was lazy and wanted to slide away no matter how I wanted it to be still.
This all went on for what seemed a very long time. They irrigated my eye with water more than once, and at one point an assistant dripped more numbing drops in my eye. It burned on the edges of my eye, where the speculum was pressing. I felt the prick of the needle at some points. The sutures started to become actively painful instead of just uncomfortable--probably about a 3 on the 1 to 10 scale. I did my very best to stay as still as possible through it all.
At one point Dr. Price pressed very firmly on my eye, I think to test the tiny drainage hole. It was felt weird and the pressure seemed to last for a long time, then finally release, and my vision was suddenly a bit clearer--I could see the ring of light above me more distinctly, instead of a blobby blur of hundreds of white circles overlapping each other in a bright mess. All in all, it was basically like getting cornea surgery again, except this time I was sedated, so I wasn't calm and fearless.
When they finally let me up, I was a bit lightheaded, but that passed soon. I had to keep my left eye squinted shut, it hurt so much. They made another appointment for me on Thursday, so yeah, I have to go back again. Still, I was able to leave right after that. I went to the bathroom first and tried to look at my left eye in the mirror. It was incredibly unwilling to look forward and focus, and also amazing bloodshot. Like, thousands of little red lines through the white part of the eye, and this after the eye had finally healed enough that I had quit taking any painkillers at all.
I didn't have any painkillers in my purse, and I didn't want to stop at a pharmacy and buy them. I just wanted to go home. So I put my sunglasses on (I'm supposed to wear sunglasses when I go outside for the foreseeable future to protect my eye, and I've been informed that they make me look cool, so I'm okay with it) and I got in my car. I had to keep my left eye squinted shut behind the glasses.
And I drove home like that. Two hours and fifteen minutes on an interstate highway with my left eye burning and aching and constantly leaking tears, held shut behind my glasses because whenever I opened it the slightest bit the pain increased incredibly. It felt like it had been sunburned.
I made it home, though changing lanes was definitely a lot more difficult with one eye shut and crying the whole way. Ten minutes from home the pain had faded enough (and the muscles around my left eye were tired enough) that I finally let it open a bit. It kept leaking tears, of course. As soon as I got home, I rushed to the bathroom and took some painkillers, then went to down to my room and laid down on my bed to let the tears keep coming. It feels really weird to cry out of one eye and not the other one. And mind you, it wasn't exactly the pain that made me cry--it was the eye trying to heal itself with this continuous flow of viscous, healing liquid. Tears actually have amazing healing properties, and eyes heal very rapidly. Wasn't quite fast enough for me, of course, but I knew I could be much worse off.
I was afraid that maybe I wouldn't be able to work tomorrow, but it's not quite midnight and I'm feeling a lot better now. My left eye is still watering a lot, but I'm able to keep it open, occasionally squinting it shut when it really bugs me. It still feels weird and fat, too big from the air bubble. But the multiple images are gone. It's back to just being really, really blurry.
Ugh, I'm tired. Should not have stayed up this late. Time for bed.
I'm sure I'll be writing more about my travails soon enough.
The eye doctors found problems with my cornea today at my one-week follow-up appointment. There were wrinkles in the cornea, which were causing distortion similar to the keratoconus was. Obviously not we were looking for in a cornea transplant with the intent of curing keratoconus. Dr. Price said that it was because of the backing of my own tissue behind the donor tissue. When they "pushed down" the cone of my bad cornea, it made wrinkles. When they saw me right after the transplant there was just one, and it was below my line of sight so it didn't matter. But after a week of healing, more wrinkles had appeared. I had noticed last night when I was driving home from Gateway that if I closed my right eye, I was seeing the same old distortion as I used to with keratoconus, just not quite as bad. The lights had multiple halos, high contrast areas had multiple images (just one though, instead of dozens like before the surgery). I had thought that maybe this would go away as my eye healed, but Dr. Price decided today that more needed to be done to prevent that. He decided to put a big air bubble in the back of my eye to smooth out the wrinkles. But the problem with a big bubble was that it could cause problems with drainage of the eye, so they were also going to use a laser to make a tiny hole in my iris, the colored part of my eye.
Didn't have to make an appointment to come back or go to a hospital or anything. They did at the laser center across the hall. First another doctor, Dr. Feng, put some drops in my eyes, to numb it and to constrict the pupil. I sat in a chair with another laser, similar to last time but not quite as big and scary. He pushed the machine forward to press what he called a "contact" against my eye, to hold it open I suppose, and then I had to hold my eyes very carefully in the correct position so he could make the hole. Because my left eye is so lazy, this took some adjusting and struggle. It also was not as quick a process as the laser cutting on the day of my cornea surgery had been. I believe he fired that tiny laser about a dozen times. Each time I felt a little jolt of something like electricity. Even with the numbing drops, it stung a little bit. The first time startled me so much that I accidentally squeezed my eyes, which I knew was a problem. Fortunately it did not dislodge the "contact."
It was a difficult and uncomfortable procedure, but it actually turned out to be easier to then what happened next. I laid down on a padded table with a cushion under my knees and my head carefully positioned, just like before with the laser, but this was not for the laser--it was so Dr. Price could manipulate my eyeball. (I know that sounds really gross when I put that way, but that was what was happening.) I had to wait quite a while for Dr. Price to come. In the meantime Rex put a WHOLE LOT of numbing drops in my eyes. It still wasn't quite enough to deaden the feeling completely, unfortunately.
As my left eye had cleared up, I had actually gotten a little bit of vision with it. It was still very blurry, but I still enjoyed being able to see something useful out of it for the first time in ten years. Now there was a bright white circle of light with a green dot directly in the center right above my left eye. I kept my eyes closed while I was waiting, but the light still made a circle in the darkness inside my eyes.
The whole time I was thinking about driving home, and what I wanted to do when I got home. There were lots of things I needed to do. I thought about the next chapter in the fiction story I'm writing right now, the character's motivations and relationships, that sort of thing. I was hoping I might be able to write 2500 words today. I don't think that's going to happen now, though I'm at 725 already. But this isn't that story. It's another chronicle in the ongoing saga of my cornea chronicles.
So anyway. Dr. Price finally came. More numbing drops, and he propped my eye open with a speculum and warned me to very, very still, looking directly into the light. I could feel it when he injected the air into my eye, though it didn't hurt--I just sort of felt the discomfort and pressure of the needle. Instantly, the ring of light went distorted and blurry, like my vision had been during the cornea transplant in the OR, so I knew what I had happened.
But that wasn't the end of it. Then Dr. Price started actually rubbing my eye, "massaging" he called it, to try to get rid of the wrinkles. This hurt a little, but was mostly just uncomfortable pressure. But my eye felt fat and bloated from the air bubble, and I was almost scared that it might pop.
Then there started these little bitty metallic noises. He was taking out and replacing some of the sutures to make the cornea lay flat again. Each little "ting" of metal vibrated through my eyeball and the speculum. Did I mention that I was just as terrified as I had been with the laser? My breath came in short little pants and I was absolutely frozen in position, doing my very best not to move even the slightest little bit. Dr. Price said when I did wiggle, it was like "an earthquake up here," and one of my involuntary movements actually undid a stitch so he had to do it again. And again, my left eye was lazy and wanted to slide away no matter how I wanted it to be still.
This all went on for what seemed a very long time. They irrigated my eye with water more than once, and at one point an assistant dripped more numbing drops in my eye. It burned on the edges of my eye, where the speculum was pressing. I felt the prick of the needle at some points. The sutures started to become actively painful instead of just uncomfortable--probably about a 3 on the 1 to 10 scale. I did my very best to stay as still as possible through it all.
At one point Dr. Price pressed very firmly on my eye, I think to test the tiny drainage hole. It was felt weird and the pressure seemed to last for a long time, then finally release, and my vision was suddenly a bit clearer--I could see the ring of light above me more distinctly, instead of a blobby blur of hundreds of white circles overlapping each other in a bright mess. All in all, it was basically like getting cornea surgery again, except this time I was sedated, so I wasn't calm and fearless.
When they finally let me up, I was a bit lightheaded, but that passed soon. I had to keep my left eye squinted shut, it hurt so much. They made another appointment for me on Thursday, so yeah, I have to go back again. Still, I was able to leave right after that. I went to the bathroom first and tried to look at my left eye in the mirror. It was incredibly unwilling to look forward and focus, and also amazing bloodshot. Like, thousands of little red lines through the white part of the eye, and this after the eye had finally healed enough that I had quit taking any painkillers at all.
I didn't have any painkillers in my purse, and I didn't want to stop at a pharmacy and buy them. I just wanted to go home. So I put my sunglasses on (I'm supposed to wear sunglasses when I go outside for the foreseeable future to protect my eye, and I've been informed that they make me look cool, so I'm okay with it) and I got in my car. I had to keep my left eye squinted shut behind the glasses.
And I drove home like that. Two hours and fifteen minutes on an interstate highway with my left eye burning and aching and constantly leaking tears, held shut behind my glasses because whenever I opened it the slightest bit the pain increased incredibly. It felt like it had been sunburned.
I made it home, though changing lanes was definitely a lot more difficult with one eye shut and crying the whole way. Ten minutes from home the pain had faded enough (and the muscles around my left eye were tired enough) that I finally let it open a bit. It kept leaking tears, of course. As soon as I got home, I rushed to the bathroom and took some painkillers, then went to down to my room and laid down on my bed to let the tears keep coming. It feels really weird to cry out of one eye and not the other one. And mind you, it wasn't exactly the pain that made me cry--it was the eye trying to heal itself with this continuous flow of viscous, healing liquid. Tears actually have amazing healing properties, and eyes heal very rapidly. Wasn't quite fast enough for me, of course, but I knew I could be much worse off.
I was afraid that maybe I wouldn't be able to work tomorrow, but it's not quite midnight and I'm feeling a lot better now. My left eye is still watering a lot, but I'm able to keep it open, occasionally squinting it shut when it really bugs me. It still feels weird and fat, too big from the air bubble. But the multiple images are gone. It's back to just being really, really blurry.
Ugh, I'm tired. Should not have stayed up this late. Time for bed.
I'm sure I'll be writing more about my travails soon enough.