ER Trip

So I had a little adventure last week that will keep on giving for a while.

On Wednesday night after getting out for just a forty-five minute walk on a hot and humid night, Rebekah and I packed two plastic bins of books for Ed and Nancy Calkins to take to Willow Fest for this weekend.

I felt a little "off," drank a little more water, finished packing, and got into the shower a little late (for me) - about nine o'clock.

I bent over at one point, and I straighted, a rainbow sprayed from my left and arched over my vision.

Now this was different from a migraine aura.

This was different from the "stars" one sees if position is changed too fast.

From then on, it was flashing lights, which seemed more pronounced from my right eye.

I knew this wasn't good: stroke, retinal detachment, or (maybe, if I was lucky), dehydration.

The bathroom is white and bright, so the flashing was obvious.

But it all but disappeared when I went into other rooms in the house.

So I had a snack and watched thirty minutes of Master's Sun with Rebekah. Flashing lights: still gone. Good. I was half asleep already. Time to brush my teeth and go to bed.

But in the white bathroom with the bright, white lights, those flashing lights were clearly there.

I had no other symptoms of stroke. I was pretty sure it was the retina. But a retinal dettachment is an emergency, too, unless one wants to go blind. 

I wasn't that person.

My question to the universe: Why don't these things happen at more "normal" time, like one o'clock in the afternoon? Why is it always at bedtime.

Anyway, by the time Timothy and I left for the hospital, the flashing lights were now just oozing strands of black silly string in my right eye. Retina. I was positive.

I have really bad astigmatism, and I'm very near-sighted. I always knew in the back of my head (pun) that retinal detachment was a real possibility one day. And now, here it was?

At the ER, I was triaged and CT-scanned immediately. And then we waited in the waiting room for a few hours. So, again, I was pretty sure this wasn't a stroke. The silly string had turned to a shower of black floaters and one large gray spiderweb with thick, dark black borders.

I tried to read The Whistling Boy and was too tired. I set the book down, dozed off, and woke up realizing I'd slept an entire hour.

At three o'clock (or so) we were put into a room, where I was told "no drinking" in case more tests were needed. So it was a stroke, maybe?

Nope. No stroke. The ER doctor was firm about that.

But I did need a follow-up MRI to check something on the brain - that was also definitely not a tumor.

I had an ultrasound of the eye: no detachment. But I was still advised to follow up with my opthalmologist. I didn't need prompting. The office opened at eight-thirty, and I would be ready to dial (OK, dial - on a cell phone?).

We got home before dawn. I took a couple-hour nap, made one work call, and then called the eye doctor. He most definitely wanted to see me; could I make one-thirty that afternoon? You bet!

The upshot?

No retinal detachment.

No retinal tear, even.

But the retina did pull away slightly, which caused the flashing lights.

The black stuff I saw was actually blood.

"You dodged a bullet," he told me.

I must say, the visual stuff was pretty dramatic for not even a tear. But I did make all the right calls.

So for three weeks, I'm to lift nothing heavier than a gallon of milk.

Live life, he said, but use common sense.

Now is not the time to take up a new aerobics routine.

Lift no weights heavier than five pounds.

No sudden head jerks.

It's safe to fly (story attached to this).

Call IMMEDIATELY if I have any other changes in vision.

Otherwise, come back in three weeks.

He suggested that the questionable area on my brain could be from the high blood pressures of the pheochromocytoma twenty years ago.

But only an MRI will tell for sure.

Not sure how long it will take for the black dots and spiderwebs to fade from my vision. 

But don't get me wrong. I am thankful for the vision.