<MainPage> On 8/13, about 2 weeks ago, at the
ophthalmologist's office, I thought I was in for just an annual look-see and renewal
of referral to the retina specialist. For about a year, I've been going to the
specialist every few months because I had dry AMD in left eye and wet AMD in
right eye and specialist anticipated possible bleeding back of the right eye
eventually which would need an injection.
However, 2 weeks ago, that dude said my left "dry"
AMD had now become "wet" and there IS bleeding back there.
So today I was at the retina specialist and he agreed and
did my first eye injection.
Have to admit there was a lot of subdued terror and fear at
that thought but I tried to relax and deal with it. In the waiting rooms, I
talked to several patients who were going for regular injections for this and
were tolerating it in many different ways so it still didn't help me figure how
I'd deal with it.
Turns out my specialist now thinks I'm an elderly wimp
(sigh). See, my left eye is the most jittery when you start coming toward it.
It will clamp shut. Tight! And it will take 4 quarterbacks to open it again.
Just saying. So after he had me put my head back so far I had a momentary
vertigo from those loose crystals in my inner ear, every time he came near that
eye - yep - it clamped shut. Tight.
He kept telling me to relax, that I wasn't helping, it was
only going to be a few seconds. In retrospect, he was correct - it didn't take
even a whole minute or two at most to do what he had to do. But my eyelid
wasn't having any of that. Somehow, he managed to get it done. And I felt
embarrassed.
Ok - so in my case, I felt no real pain, honestly! I've had
worse pain the past with probing IV efforts. He said as the numbing meds wore
off today it would feel as though I had gravel or sand in my eye. And that's
about all that bothered me, except the eye was weeping off and on all day, so
I've been dabbing with tissues. Oh, and they told me to use artificial tears
and it took me all day but I finally got one drop in that eye tonight. Very
uncooperative eye. At the most, I guess I could say it felt a bit "sore" sometimes but no real pain.
Bottom line - I must return EVERY MONTH until the bleeding
stops which could be a year, or two months, or never. But I plan to practice an
open-eye-vacant-stare for the next 30 days so that eye will behave when I go
for the next one.
Rolling along...
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