Seeing Things

I've had a torn retina since mid-February. Not much fun. A torn retina is when the viscous gel inside your eyeball shrinks and the retina pulls away from the back of the eyeball. A tear sometimes happens and if this tear lets some of the fluid out between your retina and your eyeball, the retina detaches and you're seriously screwed in the vision works department unless it's caught early enough for surgery.

Symptoms are bright flashes of light that may appear as a line, a curve or dots. And floaters of blood that are released into the gel from the tear. Mine was very dramatic, accompanied by pain in the eye, and what appeared to be tiny flakes of pepper between a load of filaments of blood. It's all blood actually.

I called the optometrist the next day and they got me right in, diagnosed the tear and sent me for laser surgery. Not much fun either. I was assured by the doctor that it wouldn't hurt. He had that on heresay and not as a first person experience. The laser welds the tear back together. I've had two followup visits and another one this week. I will tell him that I'm still light sensitive and seeing flashes. The good news is that I can see again and the floaters seem to have settled to the bottom of my eye.

So. Computer was out. Outside was out. OUT was truly IN unless I wore my total wrap-around shades using my hands as goggles. But there are many things that you can see in the dark. Like the raccoon that has become so bold with me that he pulls the dish out of my hands if I try to move it back from the edge of the steps and gets impatient until I fill a bowl with cat food. I do this so that the old outside tomcat, Skitty can eat his evening meal in peace. If I don't feed the coon, he'll take the old man's food.

Skitty is recuperating, too. He borrowed the car and snatched ten bucks to go court some cat woman. Another suitor had the same idea and Skitty came home with a cauliflower ear that was terribly infected and required stitches. I got him stoned on catnip and put him in the cage. Catnip in the cage is a good trick, by the way. My cats really don't care much about the travel to the vet if they're sufficiently stoned on kitty nip.

Anyway. Skitty had a bunch of stitches and a super-douche clean out along with a drain. And several shots. I watched the whole thing. His ear. My eye.

The above brief on retinal tears/detachment is a public service announcement. If you see disco lights and you aren't in a nightclub, see about it immediately.