The Eye

Last year at about this time, I had the worst day of my life. I went to work on Friday, September 12 like it was any other day. It was sunny and warm that morning; a nice day. But I noticed something off about the vision in my left eye. There seemed to be bright patches. That was odd, but they were not very noticeable in the bright sunlight.

That evening, however, after the sun went down, the flashes were a lot more noticeable. And concerning. I have pathological myopia: extreme nearsightedness. So extreme, my optometrist referred me to an ophthalmologist several years ago. My ophtho had me come in for tests every 6 months, but everything was fine, every time. But he did say that if I saw flashes of light, I should call his office. I have a friend who experienced flashes, and he made sure to tell everyone that they should go straight to the Royal Alexandra Hospital if they ever had them. So, that’s what I did. (The Royal Alex houses the Eye Institute of Alberta; if you have an eye problem, this is where you go.)

I packed my backpack in preparation for a long stay at the Royal Alex emergency department. It turned out to be even longer than I thought. I got there at 10:30pm and, after a long, boring night, was finally seen at 9:30am--by a med school student. Nothing against med school students, but they don’t have a lot of experience. I had to tell him how to turn the ophthalmoscope on. This does not inspire confidence. An actual ER doc saw me, and did a series of pointless tests to rule out any other problems. (No, I did not get a shard of metal in my eye. How would that cause flashes, anyway?) At long last, they finally referred me to Emergency Eye Care. My appointment was for: 4:30pm. That’s 18 hours in emergency. At some point, the word “emergency” loses its meaning.

The resident in the clinic examined me for a bit, and said that he saw nothing wrong. I was so exhausted, I didn’t question this at all. I just wanted to hear good news and go home. Over the next few days, however, my eye did not improve. It just got worse. By Tuesday evening, I was getting worried, and called the after-hours on-call ophthalmologist. She told me to come in to their office the next morning, and not to eat anything after midnight. You know, just in case.

This time, I was seen right away, by a (sigh) resident. However, he confirmed my worst fears: a retinal detachment and retinal tear. He started to explain the procedure that would be done to repair it, but I didn’t really hear what he said. My mind was racing, going back to that one time I was waiting in the ophthalmologist’s office during an appointment years previous.

There was a diagram on the wall, showing all the different kinds of things that can go wrong with your eye, and the procedures that they do to try and fix it. At the bottom was the most minor procedure, all the way up to the top. At the top, it showed the scleral buckle procedure. Ew. Ick. “Jeez,” I thought. “The poor slobs who have to get that done.” Well, I was now a poor slob.

The actual, for-real ophthalmologist who confirmed the resident’s diagnosis shortly after told me to do directly to the Royal Alex hospital. Again. Not to the Emergency Department, though, but directly to the outpatient clinic. My stomach was a twisted knot of mixed feelings. Yay, I’m finally going to have something done. But…the scleral buckle. This is some serious shit. I’m sure they’re going to rush me into the operating room right away.

The outpatient clinic is filled with people. There are the patients (generally, white-haired elderly people) and a family member (generally, gray-haired middle-aged people). Did I mention that there were a lot of people? A lot. They’re all there for lens replacement due to cataracts. This seems to be the equivalent of the common cold in ophthalmology. Sure, they all had appointments scheduled weeks or months in advance, but I had an emergency. How much of an emergency was it? I was taken into the OR at around 7:30. That’s 9 hours of waiting. Long, boring, tiring, waiting. I hadn’t eaten since the day before. At one point, my friend’s wife came by and said hello and wished me good luck. Wait, what? I had posted my predicament on social media. My friend saw it, and told his wife, who is a nurse at the Alex. She somehow found me, lying on the bed outside the OR. I was so out of it, I mumbled something incoherent to her. Afterwards, I questioned whether I had just hallucinated the whole thing. (I had, in fact, not hallucinated that.)

When you have the scleral buckle procedure, you are conscious but sedated and given ketamine. I do not like ketamine, no sir. Not one bit. When you are on ketamine, you hallucinate--for real. I felt…things. But I was also floating in space next to enormous glowing golden cubes with what might have been Steven Universe.

So, they fixed my eye. I don’t know the specifics of the scleral buckle and I don’t really care to know. Maybe at some point, but not now. They also lasered parts of my retina, so it wouldn’t detach any further. This gave me a couple of medium-sized scotomas. I also had a bubble of C3F8 gas (perfluoropropane) injected into my eye. This would press against my retina, keeping it in place while it healed. However, this only works if you eye (and head, and body) are in the proper position. My position was lying on my right side. (Some people have to lie face-down--even while sleeping. This requires getting a special pillow. Glad I didn’t need that.) For various reasons, I am a back-sleeper, so this required a few strategically placed pillows, and a lot of getting used to. You would think that a gad bubble in your eye would not be noticeable and you would be wrong. It wiggles and wobbles, bobbing and weaving around constantly. Plus, it’s dark, not transparent. Who knew? Also, I would not be able to go to the mountains or on an airplane for a few months. Or my eye would explode? Something like that.

(Okay, my eye didn't look like this. But it felt like it.)

Thus began many weeks of recovery. My eye looked like I had been punched in the face by Mike Tyson. I had to get antibacterial and steroid drops--kinda hard to do when you can’t really see and have poor depth perception. One of my greatest concerns was for my students. How long would it take for me to recover enough? Should I go on short-term disability and take the rest of the term off? Since my recovery time was short (I would be able to drive again soon, even with the gas bubble), I decided to stick it out and return to class in person as soon as possible. I gave myself two weeks. In the meantime, I dug out old lecture videos from Covid times and, with my one good eye, posted them online for my students.

This probably hurts too.

Slowly, painfully, gradually, things improved. I went from being terrified that my eye would be useless, to hopeful that I would have functioning binocular vision again. I was told that I would lose 2-3 diopters of vision. For someone with -12 already, that’s not great. The good news is that my eye has now recovered so much that I have lost less than a diopter. Still needed (expensive) new glasses, though. Also, I have a lot more floaters in my left eye--and I had a lot to begin with in both eyes.

So what caused my retinal detachment? The diagnosis is posterior vitreous detachment: the gel inside your eye shrinks with age and pulls away from the back of the eye, hopefully not taking the retina with it. Nearsightedness means that your eye is longer, so maybe that’s a contributing factor, too. My other eye had PVD years ago, and the only result was getting more floaters. Genetics surely must have set the stage, but no one in my family has had a retinal tear.

My pathological nearsightedness is almost certainly due to years of “close work.” That consists of reading books, and working on a computer. In a previous post, I noted that last summer I had to learn four major new pieces of software, in addition to making the regular updates, corrections, and additions to my lectures. I spent an enormous amount of time in front of my computer. Did that contribute to my PVD and retinal tear? No one can say for sure, but even if it did a little bit, I don’t want to risk it. That would mean big changes to my workflow, and my life in general.

In the past few years, I’ve used software that pops up every 20 minutes, making me stop and look at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds (I actually take a full 1-minute break). Currently, my favourite app is the highly customizable Big Stretch Reminder for Windows. I don’t know what effect these breaks have on anything besides eye fatigue.

As for reading, it’s way more difficult now. All those floaters in my eye make me feel nauseous if I read for too long. (That’s why I only teach my PSYCH 494 Human Factors & Ergonomics course once a year now. I can’t subject myself to reading term papers twice a year.) I happily discovered that the app I use to read newspapers and magazines has a pretty good read-aloud function. And I’ve switched completely over to audiobooks. For ebooks with no audiobook available, there’s a great free program called Balabolka that can convert an ebook to an audio file using AI voices. There are even browser plugins that will read the contents of the page to you; I use the free Read Aloud.

Thinking about where I was, and where I am now, I am fortunate to have most of my vision intact. I did, eventually, receive world-class treatment. Eventually. I will be bothered by the notion that, had I been properly diagnosed sooner, I might have gotten a quick-and-easy laser treatment--no scleral buckle required.

I am especially grateful to the Department Chair and Associate Chair of Psychology who accommodated my needs, and my students in Fall, 2025 who were incredibly patient and understanding through this whole thing. Watching outdated lecture videos is not what they signed up for. I will try my best to ensure my one good eye does not explode.

Why aren’t you studying?