Through My Glasses Darkly or So Long Mr Magoo

There is a term I heard on the local news just the other night, a contemporary word used to describe those who sometimes attempt to diagnose themselves via information gotten from the internet: cyberchondriacs. It got a pretty good chuckle for me, because I've had this "affliction" myself.

Some years back, 3 and a half to be exact, I had an eye exam, normally an incident-free experience, "Okay Mr Roundly, you need some stronger glasses". About every three years I'd go in and leave with a slightly more dialed-up prescription. This past time was a bit disquieting. I was told I had the beginnings of Cataracts, not a big cause for alarm. Then I was told he didn't like my responses to his questions, that there was evidence of pathology.

That was alarming. "Why don't you come back next week and we'll run some tests?" No, screw that, let's run them today if possible.(Being a bit of a hypochondriac, I knew I'd just worry until my next appointment!) So I got myself a driver(my brother)since they dilate your pupils for such procedures. As it turned out, things were fine. Clean bill of health.

I had a problem at first with the prescription he ended up giving me, and he said "that's because of your Cataracts". Dude, you told me I just had the beginnings of Cataracts. Make up your mind: do I have them or don't I? So he adjusted the prescription and made me an appointment with an Opthalmologist just in case this didn't work.

As it turned out, my eyes adjusted to the new glasses. No need for an Opthalmologist( more friggin' tests!), at least not yet. I was continuing to have the occasional Mr Magoo moment, especially first thing in the morning, but was basically doing just fine.

One discovery I made in relation to my eyesight in the last year or two, which may or may not have had any real bearing: as a person who's enjoyed his Corona and/or cannabis sativa, I found that abstaining from these substances(well okay, cutting back on them) seemed to facilitate my ability to read fine print. It may have been that they just raised my blood pressure and fogged things up from that angle, but nonetheless there was a cause-and-effect relationship going there.

And then one evening last Fall(October 29th to be exact)driving home from a job, I noticed a sort of double-vision as far as stoplights. I'd been cutting back on the Corona and cannabis and was enjoying what I thought was clear vision, but was tired and stressed that night, so I attributed it to nerves. Didn't happen the next night or the night after that, but I did notice another instance of it one night in November. Again, tired and stressed, driving home from a job, same double-vision with the stoplights.

In December I was starting to see 'halos' around lights at night, not just stoplights but all manner of nocturnal luminescence. My regular vision was just fine, or so I thought, until I realized, late in the month, that the halos were in one eye and the vision in that eye was blurry. My left eye had been doing most of the work.

2011 rolled around with me still pushing this problem to the back of my mind, but the halos started to happen inside the house: on the lights on my computer, my printer, the TVs. It was a problem I couldn't ignore anymore. I was paralyzed with fear, so scared at first I couldn't do anything, but got on the Internet to see what might be going on(see cyberchondria earlier in this blog)and found a million possibilities: some of them serious, some gravely serious, and some relatively innocuous. It didn't assuage my fears, only made me more confused.

Based on my last experience with an Optometrist, I figured I'd get another well-meaning but alarmist individual who'd drive my blood pressure up even higher, and I didn't have a regular Physician, having let too much time go by(12 years)between visits, so it took about a week of phone calls to get this lined up. As luck would have it, they were now taking patients at the clinic where my old Doctor still worked, so I was able to get back with him. I'd tried over the past couple years, but they were always understaffed and not taking new patients- until now.

That first visit back, I got a pretty thorough once-over, including shining a bright light in both eyes. Cataracts. "So that's what's been causing the halos and blurry vision?" "Yep." A huge sigh of relief followed on my part. Much of the anxiety I'd been feeling had to do with the unknown, with the plethora of possibilities I'd discovered on the Internet, any of which could have been the problem. The infinite becomes finite. Plus cataracts are a fixable problem.

Since that first visit, I've had several more. We're working on my blood pressure, which my Physician tells me is more serious than cataracts. It's lowering, thanks to a couple meds he has me on plus my awareness of the problem. Like cataracts, a fixable problem. But you have to work at it.

I've also had several visits to an Opthalmologist, plus cataract surgery in both eyes. The first was on March 1st, in the right eye- the "problem" eye. My vision there they clocked recently at 20/25- a damn sight better than it was before all these problems! My left eye was done just this Tuesday, and is still on the mend of course but getting there as well. It could've happened in the surgery or from jenius-boy here and his not-so-deft eyedropper technique, but I suffered a corneal abrasion, which is also on the mend and almost healed. I was a bit alarmed by this news, but the tech(my favorite of my Opthalmologist's staff of 3)assured me, "from one cyberchondriac to another, no worries!".

So it's nice to have tackled these problems with my health. The cataract thing was something in the back of my mind, halos or no halos, that I knew would become a problem at some point, and the blood pressure was also in the 'occipital lobe' as something to be reckoned with. At this point in my life, I have two blood-pressure meds plus a mild tranquillizer that I take every morning, plus eyedrops in each eye 4 times a day and a moisturizer eyedrop 3 times a day. I do meditation twice a day(an old regimen of mine which I've done for the last 30 years off and on).

The eyedrop thing goes for 7 weeks after your surgery(by the way, cataract surgery is a painless procedure, the only thing you feel is the IV going in your hand), which for me is May 3rd. Who knows with the blood-pressure meds, time will tell. Like I said, it's nice to be tackling these problems and getting them resolved. All this clean living is getting to me though. I miss having a Corona or several every now and then.