Blog
Thursday, November 29, 2012
CoachT's Health Update: 11-29-12
A quick background for those of you who have asked:
In March, 2012, I suddenly was unable to walk and spent 8 days in the hospital with what we thought was Guillain-Barre syndrome (thankfully, it wasn't), or bacterial meningitis (again, thankfully it wasn't or I wouldn't be typing this), or viral meningitis (which is what it turned out to be). The virus was in my spinal fluid and interrupted the nerve signals.
After a week of rehab at home I woke up one morning and my vision was blurred in my right eye. After another week of diagnosis I ended up at Vanderbilt Eye Institute having laser surgery done to both eyes. It seems that the virus that caused the meningitis had gone undetected in my eyes (because no one thought to look) and was subsequently identified as the shingles virus, apparently a rare thing in your synovial fluid in your eyes. It was causing the retinas in both eyes to start to detach. The left one was caught early and hopefully is OK. Not so with the right one.
After a few months of treating my right eye, the retina began to detach. On Friday, August 17th, Dr. Stephen Kim operated on my right eye at Vanderbilt and reattached the retina using a procedure called a scleral buckle (they put a strap around your eye to elongate it and lessen the pressure on the retina) and a vitrectomy (to clean out my eye). They added oil of some type to my eye fluid which will keep me from seeing clearly until they remove it, some time in November. The oil helps keep pressure on the retina until it heals. (Most people have a gas bubble put in their eye instead of oil but, since I am flying to Germany this month, they used the oil.)
At this point my vision in my right eye is improving but is simply blurred. Wearing glasses so I can see well out of my left eye makes the vision in my right eye that much worse and will until the oil is removed and I can get the proper prescription for my right eye. I can operate a computer fine but must keep my right eye closed when doing so, at least for now.
Here is a video I watched of the scleral buckle procedure prior to the surgery. I am one of those that wants to know exactly what will happen even though I would be under anesthesia during my operation. This video is not for the squeamish. It is very graphic.
I've told you a lot more than most of you wanted to know but it should answer everyone's questions. I'll update the progress here.
10-2-12: Great news today. Met with Dr. Kim and he was very pleased. We have scheduled a meeting with a cataract doctor in late November to make plans for another surgery. This time we will be removing a cataract in my right eye, removing the oil from the earlier surgery, and putting in a corrective lens to improve my vision (by how much I'm not sure). We will also be putting a corrective lens in my left eye which should give me 20-20 vision in that eye! For the first time since the 7th grade I will not have to wear glasses except maybe to read. I am excited, relieved, happy, whatever.
PS. If you ever know anyone with viral meningitis please tell them to have their eye fluid checked for the same virus!
11-18-12: "Final" surgery on my right eye is now scheduled for Dec 7, 2012 at Vandy Eye Institute. Dr. Kim will remove the oil from my eye, from previous surgery, and do a little more laser surgery in order to tack down any weak parts of my retina. Dr. Kammer will remove a cataract and replace the lens in that eye. 20-30 vision is our goal in my right eye! My left eye will have to wait until that cataract is worse. Insurance reasons. I will have that one done when the doc says it is bad enough. So, here is hoping!!
11-29-2012: Visited (1) Vanderbilt Clinic yesterday for a pre-op and (2) Vandy Eye Institute to have them check my left eye. I now have eye surgery scheduled on my right eye on December 7th and my left eye about a month later. Good thing I wanted to go back to eye doctor (since we were there, anyway, for the pre-op stuff) to have my left eye checked. I could tell the cataract in it was a little worse than before. While there they checked my right eye again and found an inflammation which, if gone untreated, would have prevented them from doing the surgery next week. Still have to get that cleared up so they can go ahead. Compared to what some people are facing this is relatively small stuff but wanted to update everyone at once so your questions would be answered.
1-1-13: Had my surgery on the 7th and everything went well. I had gotten very optimistic, which is not my normal state, so I am a little disappointed at the results thus far. Instead of 20-30 vision it is currently 20-100 and can be corrected to 20-40 with glasses but there is a lot of blurring. I also have something called micropsia. This causes things in my right eye to appear smaller than in my left. I'm not sure if this correctable at all and will have to wait until I see Dr. Kim on January 16th before I find out.
3/16/13: Had a membrane (scar tissue) lasered off my right eye on March 14th. My left eye looks to be stable now and 20/20 vision with glasses. My right eye is a mess but explaining what I see is impossible. If you have ever been around someone with vision problems you probably know how much they try to describe what they see but really can't explain it. It is hard for someone else to understand how I can watch TV with my right eye, no glasses, and recognize people but can look at someone in the room, including Elaine, and can't tell who they are. It all has to do with colors and faces tend to fade into the background. This all started a year ago with viral meningitis and, even though I asked every doctor if it could affect any other part of my body, my retinas started detaching a couple of weeks later. I either asked the wrong questions or the wrong doctors (none of them local).
1-14-16 Putting things into perspective:
Today I went for my yearly eye checkup at Vanderbilt Eye Institute with Dr. Stephen Kim (this has become our routine after 1/2 dozen laser surgeries, vitrectomies, a scleral buckle, etc). After the typical dilation, eye chart, looking into my eye stuff with his assistant Dr. Kim came in, looked into my eyes and then listened to me whine a minute about how I couldn't see as well as I wished. Then, as usual, he started asking his "student" assistant (this is a teaching hospital, as you probably know) questions and making comments like I wasn't even there.
Looking at my right eye he told him that "This eye looks good. I didn't really think we could save it but he can see some out of it which is a big success". He then went on to tell him that if I had gotten this virus in the 70s or early 80s that I would be blind, both eyes would have "sunk", and they would have had to remove them both.
Suddenly, my eyesight seemed much better and my whining went away.
2-14-17 On February 27th I will have to have a cataract removed from my left eye. Left eye now is 20-400 without glasses, right eye is 20-150.
Posted by CoachT at 8:50 AM · 5057 Views · COMMENTS
In March, 2012, I suddenly was unable to walk and spent 8 days in the hospital with what we thought was Guillain-Barre syndrome (thankfully, it wasn't), or bacterial meningitis (again, thankfully it wasn't or I wouldn't be typing this), or viral meningitis (which is what it turned out to be). The virus was in my spinal fluid and interrupted the nerve signals.
After a week of rehab at home I woke up one morning and my vision was blurred in my right eye. After another week of diagnosis I ended up at Vanderbilt Eye Institute having laser surgery done to both eyes. It seems that the virus that caused the meningitis had gone undetected in my eyes (because no one thought to look) and was subsequently identified as the shingles virus, apparently a rare thing in your synovial fluid in your eyes. It was causing the retinas in both eyes to start to detach. The left one was caught early and hopefully is OK. Not so with the right one.
After a few months of treating my right eye, the retina began to detach. On Friday, August 17th, Dr. Stephen Kim operated on my right eye at Vanderbilt and reattached the retina using a procedure called a scleral buckle (they put a strap around your eye to elongate it and lessen the pressure on the retina) and a vitrectomy (to clean out my eye). They added oil of some type to my eye fluid which will keep me from seeing clearly until they remove it, some time in November. The oil helps keep pressure on the retina until it heals. (Most people have a gas bubble put in their eye instead of oil but, since I am flying to Germany this month, they used the oil.)
At this point my vision in my right eye is improving but is simply blurred. Wearing glasses so I can see well out of my left eye makes the vision in my right eye that much worse and will until the oil is removed and I can get the proper prescription for my right eye. I can operate a computer fine but must keep my right eye closed when doing so, at least for now.
Here is a video I watched of the scleral buckle procedure prior to the surgery. I am one of those that wants to know exactly what will happen even though I would be under anesthesia during my operation. This video is not for the squeamish. It is very graphic.
I've told you a lot more than most of you wanted to know but it should answer everyone's questions. I'll update the progress here.
10-2-12: Great news today. Met with Dr. Kim and he was very pleased. We have scheduled a meeting with a cataract doctor in late November to make plans for another surgery. This time we will be removing a cataract in my right eye, removing the oil from the earlier surgery, and putting in a corrective lens to improve my vision (by how much I'm not sure). We will also be putting a corrective lens in my left eye which should give me 20-20 vision in that eye! For the first time since the 7th grade I will not have to wear glasses except maybe to read. I am excited, relieved, happy, whatever.
PS. If you ever know anyone with viral meningitis please tell them to have their eye fluid checked for the same virus!
11-18-12: "Final" surgery on my right eye is now scheduled for Dec 7, 2012 at Vandy Eye Institute. Dr. Kim will remove the oil from my eye, from previous surgery, and do a little more laser surgery in order to tack down any weak parts of my retina. Dr. Kammer will remove a cataract and replace the lens in that eye. 20-30 vision is our goal in my right eye! My left eye will have to wait until that cataract is worse. Insurance reasons. I will have that one done when the doc says it is bad enough. So, here is hoping!!
11-29-2012: Visited (1) Vanderbilt Clinic yesterday for a pre-op and (2) Vandy Eye Institute to have them check my left eye. I now have eye surgery scheduled on my right eye on December 7th and my left eye about a month later. Good thing I wanted to go back to eye doctor (since we were there, anyway, for the pre-op stuff) to have my left eye checked. I could tell the cataract in it was a little worse than before. While there they checked my right eye again and found an inflammation which, if gone untreated, would have prevented them from doing the surgery next week. Still have to get that cleared up so they can go ahead. Compared to what some people are facing this is relatively small stuff but wanted to update everyone at once so your questions would be answered.
1-1-13: Had my surgery on the 7th and everything went well. I had gotten very optimistic, which is not my normal state, so I am a little disappointed at the results thus far. Instead of 20-30 vision it is currently 20-100 and can be corrected to 20-40 with glasses but there is a lot of blurring. I also have something called micropsia. This causes things in my right eye to appear smaller than in my left. I'm not sure if this correctable at all and will have to wait until I see Dr. Kim on January 16th before I find out.
3/16/13: Had a membrane (scar tissue) lasered off my right eye on March 14th. My left eye looks to be stable now and 20/20 vision with glasses. My right eye is a mess but explaining what I see is impossible. If you have ever been around someone with vision problems you probably know how much they try to describe what they see but really can't explain it. It is hard for someone else to understand how I can watch TV with my right eye, no glasses, and recognize people but can look at someone in the room, including Elaine, and can't tell who they are. It all has to do with colors and faces tend to fade into the background. This all started a year ago with viral meningitis and, even though I asked every doctor if it could affect any other part of my body, my retinas started detaching a couple of weeks later. I either asked the wrong questions or the wrong doctors (none of them local).
1-14-16 Putting things into perspective:
Today I went for my yearly eye checkup at Vanderbilt Eye Institute with Dr. Stephen Kim (this has become our routine after 1/2 dozen laser surgeries, vitrectomies, a scleral buckle, etc). After the typical dilation, eye chart, looking into my eye stuff with his assistant Dr. Kim came in, looked into my eyes and then listened to me whine a minute about how I couldn't see as well as I wished. Then, as usual, he started asking his "student" assistant (this is a teaching hospital, as you probably know) questions and making comments like I wasn't even there.
Looking at my right eye he told him that "This eye looks good. I didn't really think we could save it but he can see some out of it which is a big success". He then went on to tell him that if I had gotten this virus in the 70s or early 80s that I would be blind, both eyes would have "sunk", and they would have had to remove them both.
Suddenly, my eyesight seemed much better and my whining went away.
2-14-17 On February 27th I will have to have a cataract removed from my left eye. Left eye now is 20-400 without glasses, right eye is 20-150.
