The Delta House

I was living in Arlington, TX in 1998 with my new bride, and one day, I suddenly felt dizzy for no apparent reason. At first, I thought that I had a cold because that is one of the symptoms that I experience when my head is congested. I gave it a few days to clear up, but it didn't go away. My wife thought that my eyes were just getting bad, the occupational hazard of working around lasers like I do. I reluctantly made an appointment at the local Sears Eyecare Center, and went over there in the company truck to get an exam.

It was a normal exam at first, and the optician assumed that I was just getting nearsighted. As an afterthought, she put some drops in my eyes to dilate my pupils and take a closer look. So there I sat in the waiting room with this dark visor that made me look like a chubby, less redneck-like Dale Earnhardt, waiting for like 30 minutes until they were fully dilated. She called me and had a look. Right eye, no problem. She hovered over my left eye for a little longer than the right, but finally stopped examining it. Right away, she started pulling down medical journals from the bookshelves and ripping through them like Doc Brown in Back to the Future! Then she starts asking her assistant for the on-call opthamologist's number! I almost shit myself! What the hell could be so wrong that she was afraid to tell me?

When things finally settled down, she informed me that I had a severely torn retina that would require immediate surgery. She gave me a referral , and sent me on my way. The next day, I had a consult with the opthamologist, and had the 4 1/2-hour surgery the following day.

Recovery time is about seven weeks from this surgery because you have to wait for the gas bubble that they put in your eye to keep the retina in place to dissipate. And for the first three weeks, I had to sit in a massage chair with my head facing down so the air bubble could put pressure on the retina which is in the back of your eye. Having one eye sucked really bad. First, I couldn't drive at all. I kept walking into things and knocking stuff off the table because I had no depth perception whatsoever. My asshole boss at the time kept bitching at me that he needed me back at work, even though my job was splicing optical fibers which I wasn't even able to see at the time! And there were complications, so I almost developed glaucoma!

After it had finally healed, I developed a cataract, which was not uncommon for this surgery. I went to a cataract specialist whose waiting room looked like a scene out of Cocoon. They actually asked me if I was there to pick up my grandmother! Anyway, I had the surgery to remove the natural lens and implant an intraocular lens, or as I call it, my bionic eye. My vision has been great ever since, that is until the past couple of weeks.

I noticed that driving at night had become rather difficult, and that my vision in my left eye wasn't as clear as it had been. I went to my eye doctor yesterday, and he said the I had opacification of the intraocular lens, or as I refer to it, my bionic eye is cloudy. Luckily they can correct this problem with a simple laser surgery, so now I am off to yet another opthamologist for another consult. Stay tuned...