It’s nearly eight months since my surgery (next Saturday, 4 July is eight months.) I had an appointment today with Dr. Ayers. We were taken back to the examination room, which was called Pod 3. We joked with the tech, a seemed to be twenty something white guy, about the name of the standard eight by ten room used in countless ophthalmology offices everywhere. The tech said the number designated the disease, while Pod made it sound high-tech. Pod 3, therefore, was for cornea issues.
The tech asked how my eyes were feeling and if I’ve had any problems lately (good and not really unless you count the elbow Eliz landed on my left eye last night.) He then asked if I was seeing any better and I responded by reciting the eye chart down to the 20/60 line. Since he hadn’t turned on the machine yet, he knew my memory was still good. I was a little worried when he turned the machine on. I saw the E, but not clearly. I also had trouble seeing the S in the SL (20/200) line. If I didn’t know it was an S, I don’t think I would have been able to guess what it was (though there are only 26 letters in the alphabet and usually no duplicates on a line, so I knew it wasn’t an L. I could also eliminate other letters that are not rounded, like A, K, X, H, E, F, I, M, N, T, V, W, Y, and Z. Now I’ve got a one in 10 chance. Is that seeing or guessing? I told the tech my concerns. He handed me the eye cover with all the pinholes and told me to try that. Within 10 seconds I could see the S. When I was rattling off all the lines before he turned the machine on, he said there were alternative lines on the machine, made up by numbers. I asked him to go to those so that I could see if I actually could see anything there. He put the largest line up, which was the 20/100 line. Without the pinholes, I saw five black blobs. With the pinholes I was able to spot the 7 all the way on the right. I was pretty excited.
Dr. Ayers came in shortly after. He had a look and told me things looked pretty good. The only concern is that my IOP was six. It has been fluctuating between six and eight for a few years, but has been at six for quite some time. I asked if I could go swimming and was told I could. I also asked if I could wear goggles. Dr. Ayers advised me not to wear the goggles that the swimmers in the Olympics wear, but to use those that are larger. Fortunately, I already own a pair of AquaSphere goggles, so I’m good to go. Dr. Ayers told me to cut back on the Predforte to only Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as he didn’t see any signs of rejection going on. I’d like to be off the ‘roids at my next visit in October. The cataract is still not ready to come out. The amount of vision I’d pick up by having it removed isn’t worth the boatload of risk (it could wreck December’s surgery, as well as destablilize the eye as far as the glaucoma is concerned.) That finished up my appointment and we were good to go.
So, the bottom line is that I was pleased with what Dr. Ayers told me. I can do whatever I could do before the surgery (swim, lift heavy things – though, the heavier I get, the less I seem to be able to lift, etc.) Still waiting on something/someone to fix my badly damaged optic nerve…