New Hope For Some Eyes
My family is rich in nearsighted vision or myopia.
Myopia is basically the result of the eye getting longer from front to back. It is correctable via the use of concave lenses. My story is that the more intelligent one is, the more nearsighted you are. Science might not back that up but my superior intellect tells me it is so haha.
I was having a hard time focusing on the blackboard in a second grade class. My parents were told and immediately took me to an optometrist.
Annually, I came to know that my glasses were going to have to be increased in strength. With the increase in strength comes lessening of peripheral vision (side vision) and growing “coke bottle bottom glasses”.
Age 13(in 1959), I got contact lenses which gave me normal albeit lens corrected vision. I was always the most nearsighted patient for any eye doctor that I went to. Hard lenses have been on my eyes ever since.
Age 52, I had some bleeding in my retina that healed itself but took part of the field of vision in my left eye. I was told that my retinas were stretched to their limits.
This year in March, age 61, the right eye was getting worse. My doctor noted that my vision with lenses on was now 20/50. He could see no reason for it despite giving me numerous eye scans using the latest scientific machines.
By April it had progressed to 20/200 with my lenses on (lens corrected). The number mattered little as I could no longer see anyone's face much less the big “E”.
They discovered that in the very center of my vision that I had hemorrhaged. A little group of capillaries or blood vessels had formed on the back side of my retina. They were pushing up and distorted my vision plus I was still bleeding.
I shuddered at the news. My cousin's wife Trish had a similar experience a few years back. Although she had enough money to travel long distances and afford the top doctors in America, they were not able to save her vision.
The young doctor is a son of a pioneer in eye care and the head of a prestigious opthalmology department at a Mid-West university. He told me up front that my insurance probably would not pay for the treatment that he was to suggest. Lasers could not help as the offending blood vessel network was hidden on the underside. Lay people believe that lasers work wonders for blind people. The truth is that lasers are a crude tool at the molecular level. They are used for many things but not all.
He wanted to try an eye injection. There were some existing drugs to use. He offered to use new drugs of which there were two to choose from...Avastin and Lucentis. I had heard of these. They were approved as colon cancer meds. He would be using them off label or in another fashion than they were approved for. He said there had success in eye usage but no promises.
He told me the cost of Lucentis was $2000 per shot. I told him to order me the dog and white cane. Continuing on he said the Avastin was $250 per shot and of course I jumped on that one.
One of the great sales techniques is to start high and it is easier to sell the lower priced items. He could have sold me on about anything at that point.
The meds were ordered and I was back in the chair 3 days later. The night before I had dreams about an elaborate sci-fi helmet holding my head to a large granite block to avoid sudden quick movements of my head during excruciating pain. The sci-fi dream also had a suction cup device to hold the eyeball motionless.
What kind of drugs was I on to invent that scenario.
The doctor's assistant liberally swabbed my eye with a combination of disinfectants and numbing solution. After 15 minutes I actually began to look for the helmets and suction cups.
The doctor came in and said look up. He injected the surface with additional pain killing solution. Damn, I didn't feel a thing. A couple minutes later, he said look up again and I felt a little discomfort as a needle went through the inside wall of my eye. A somewhat iridescent swirl that reminded me of a 1960's psychedelic movie briefly appeared in my vision. Doctor said “Well that's it”. It was over in seconds and my fears of futuristic medicine went away. I couldn't believe it was so darn easy. Even if it doesn't work, it will be worth hearing the moans when I tell my squeamish friends. Hehehe
About 5 days later, I began to see some minor improvement. On the sixth, it was even better. I went in for a follow up the next week and enjoyed watching the usually staid retinologist kick up his heels in joy over my improvement.
6 weeks later I received another injection just to make sure. My vision is now 20/30 corrected and distortion is virtually nil.
Thank God this was available when I needed it. Too bad that my now late cousin did not get to have this done.
June 6, 2007: In Iraq, the terrorists have come to realize that the small robots American troops are using, are sometimes more dangerous than the Americans themselves. There are several thousand of these small (under 100 pounds, and look like a miniature tank) droids in use, and they have become a primary target for the terrorists. The most common use of these robots is to check out objects that might be roadside bombs. Terrorists will detonate their roadside bomb if they see a robot going to check it out, and will fire on the droids as well. Users have come to rely on the droids for all sorts of things, and have adapted to the terrorist attacks on the droids, by treating the robots like "one of the team." Thus troops will provide covering fire for droids, as necessary, and will not send the robots out on suicide missions unless it's really important.