Sigh.....you would think it would be over by now, this mystery of the blurry eye. It lingers, but I believe I have an answer, for the most part. After several visits to the opthomalogist and today a retina specialist, I have a sort of answer. Dry Macular Degeneration.....at 41. 41.
My pupils are still dilated from the NINE DROPS I endured in each eye to completely and extremely open up my pupils. The specialist from Seattle performed all the regular exams I have had multiple times over the past few months, and then some. At one time, he placed a lens on my eye that looked like a contact on steroids with a black frame around them. This was to magnify my eyeball so that he could shine the 1000 watt light into my eye and take a look around. The amount of tears I shed could fill a bathtub. Goodbye makeup...you dumbass. I knew I shouldn't have worn any, but my mama always taught me to dress my best when I see the doctor....you didn't want him thinking you didn't know how to take care of yourself. Totally southern thing and way outdated these days....but old habits die hard. Besides, I AM over 40 now..time to act like a grownup....sort of.
The next test the specialist put me through was god awful. After complete dilation, I was escorted to a softly lit room and sat in front of a camera. Chin and forehead in place, I had these cute little pictures of the BACK of my eyeball taken. Just in time for Christmas cards! Not only color photos, but black and whites as well! Yippee! Then the trouble began....
The camera operator (a specialist, he assured me) informs me that he will be injecting a boatload of this black dye into the vein of my hand so that he can get an even cuter picture of the back of my eyeball! After many taps on the back of my hand and the tightest damn rubber band around my forearm, he stuck the needle in and took FOREVER pushing the plunger on the syringe full of dye into my blood stream.
As the liquid is entering my body, he informs me that in very rare cases, some people feel a wave of nausea from the dye, but don't worry..it's only about 1 in 3000 people who experience this. As you may have guessed....I'm the freak.
Thirty seconds after the dye was injected, he takes 3 pictures of my left eye, then notices the green color of my face and asks me if I'm ok. I respond "No. I feel nausous". He reacts by grabbing the trash can behind him and placing it between my knees, forcing my head down over it. What a dainty flower I must have looked like!
I was a mere nanosecond from spewing lunch all over the room. The rolling wave of hot nausea made me woozy and lightheaded. Within less than a minute, the nausea passes, leaving my dignity intact and allowing me the grace to hold my head up high over my vomit victory.
Back to the camera for dye pictures of my right eye. The pain from the lights are dragging streams of tears down my cheeks. It is almost unbearable to endure. After the final pictures were taken, I wipe the wetness from my face and look around the room. "Was that light always pink?" I asked the doctor. "No, it's your retina reacting to the intense light from the test. You should see green, then purple next". Weird, but in a colorful, psychadelic kinda way. Pretty.
Testing done, it's now time to review the findings with the specialist. Off to another room I go to wait. Ten minutes later, the specialist returns and tells me I have what is called "Dry Macular Degeneration". Basically, I have deposits called drusen forming in the back of my eye. This is caused by a number of things, but the main reason one develops this is because the blood vessels in the eye have had blood flow restricted and deprived the eye of oxygen. Smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and lack of proper nutrients called carotenoids can cause this.
Wow. What can I say? No one in my family has been diagnosed with this problem, but the doctor is sure I have a genetic link to this disease. He then went on to ask me if I am from the North Carolina area, because there is a rare birth defect that occurs in that area among "kissing cousins". No shit! He really said that! I told him my parents are from Virginia and Georgia, so anything's possible. He actually wrote that down in my chart!
The thing he said that blew me away was this: "This diagnosis does not explain your blurry vision". WTF? Isn't that the whole reason I came here? He told me that Dry Macular Degeneration results in a loss in the center of your vision..much like a grey area in the middle of your line of sight, NOT blurriness! Straight lines may appear wavy to me with this disease, but blurriness is not one of the symptoms.
Basically, I have a disease that 70 year old's get.....at the age of 41. So why in the hell is my vision blurry????? Who the hell knows?! My Dr. Nurse sister explains it to me this way, "Medicine is not an exact science". Whatever.
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