Spacehamster’s Blog

In December of last year I went to see an Opthamologist to have an Angiogram done. He recommended that I have several sessions of Laser Photocoagulation treatment with Dr. Brendan Vote. He’s the only laser surgeon in the entire state, and each fortnight makes a trip to Hobart to treat patients here. Lucky me.

For the first 3 sessions, everything was okay. I had the usual sideeffects - reduced central vision (you can’t read properly) and reduced peripheral vision. No big deal - both side effects would’ve dissapeared after the sessions were finished. After the fourth treatment on February 16th, I started seeing 2 or 3 black floaters in my right eye. They were irritating but didn’t effect my laser treatment.

Then on February 28th everything went straight to hell.

In the afternoon, a large black floater appeared in my left eye. It was so bad that I couldn’t even see well enough to drive. My Endocrinologist - the wonderful Professor John Burgess - setup an Emergency Medical Appointment with the Opthamologist Dr. Banks. His prognosis was that the large black floater was due to a vein squirting a tiny amount of blood into my left eye. That blood would be reabsorbed back into the eye. Okay, so it’s bad right now but it’ll get better over the next month or so.

I went to see Dr Brendan Vote on Friday. Much to my shock, he said that if the large floater in my left eye didn’t clear up in the next fortnight, he wanted to have a vitrectomy done! I resent that Dr. Vote is suggesting a course of action that will impact the rest of my life in such a severe way. I don’t want to have cataracts or run the risk of blindness. And I sure as hell don’t want to spend the next 14-21 days with my face in a vertical sling. Patient anecdotes from the US show you can lose your vision for up to 5 months. Bugger that crap.

So what do I do know? My father has suggested stopping the treatments altogether. Dr Vote insists this is purely coincidence (of course he would). Or I could cancel the next fortnight session and wait another month for the blood floater to clear up. As for me? This “simple” laser surgery has ruined my life in the worst way imaginable. I just don’t want to end up like Mr. Magoo. Or blind in both eyes due to a botched vitrectomy.

We’ll see.