On Labor Day in 2011, not long before my 63rd birthday, I had a Posterior Vitreous Detachment with a retinal tear in my right eye.
As I was driving that day I noticed a flickering of a dark cobweb-like structure in the right edge of my vision in my right eye. I wasn't sure what it was but I knew it wasn't normal. Later that day I noticed that there were a lot of new "floaters" in my vision in that eye. When I looked up at the sky, the floaters looked like a shower of round dots that looked like blood cells to me. I later found out that was exactly what they were. Concerned about a possible retinal detachment, I called my ophthalmologist. She was out of town for Labor Day weekend, but she took my call. She listened to my symptoms and she told me to go to the closest Emergency Room. The doctors at the ER examined my dilated eye and determined that I had a Vitreous Detachment with some bleeding, and they arranged with my ophthalmologist for me to be seen in her office the following morning. At my office visit, she saw some blood inside the eye and she was able to see what she determined to be a torn retina. She arranged for me to see a retinal surgeon later that day.
The retinal surgeon confirmed the diagnosis of a retinal tear and he used a laser to make a great many burn scars around the torn area to "weld" the retina to the back of the eye. The procedure took only a few minutes and wasn't terribly uncomfortable, but I was surprised that I did feel some pain, and it took some determination on my part to sit still and endure it. I went to a couple of follow-up appointments with the retinologist and I was released as the tear was healed. I had no further problems with my retina until three years later.
About a year after my laser retina treatment, I had cataract surgery in my right eye. I was having difficulty reading road signs with my right eye and my optometrist said that I needed cataract surgery if I wanted to improve my vision. Both my retinologist and the ophthalmologist said that enough time had elapsed after my laser therapy and that it would be safe to do the cataract surgery.
A routine cataract surgery was done on my right eye in 2012. The standard phacoemulsion surgery was done, in which the clouded lens of the eye is liquified and removed, and then the lens is replaced by a new plastic lens of the proper prescription. The surgery was short and not uncomfortable, since I was anesthetized, and I don't remember anything about it. After a day of recovery with a patch on my eye, I was delighted with the improved vision in my right eye. I found that colors were more vibrant and that my left eye in comparison had a yellow tinge to everything. The lens that the surgeon put in my eye corrected my nearsightedness to some degree, so I needed a new eyeglass prescription that was much less strong. After I got my new eyeglasses, I was very pleased with my vision. The only problem was that there was now a large difference in the prescriptions between my right eye and my left eye. The optometrist said that it was something called "unequal adds", so I might have a problem with double vision. It turned out that I did have a bit of a problem with that, but my brain adjusted to it quickly.
I spent the next two years enjoying my improved vision and I didn't think much further about it. I did notice that my vision in my left eye was getting more blurry and that, surprisingly, I was getting a bit of blur in my right eye even though it had had cataract surgery already.
In general, my vision seemed to be in good shape and I didn't think much about it. I realized that I probably now needed cataract surgery in my left eye, but my right eye vision was plenty strong enough to meet my vision needs. I didn't know that a problem was developing in my right retina that would become a detachment two years later.
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