The Night Before

Don't worry folks, I'm typing this with my eyes closed, thanks to my touch typing skills!!! So, here's the story. I had partial blurred vision in my lower right eye since Friday. I gave myself another day for it to clear as I was wondering whether it was due to fatigue. Saturday came and my vision was still blurred. I didn't really want to alarm Mom and told myself that I'll see the doc on Monday and if need be, then I'll let her know.

So there I was at UH at 7.30am, waiting for my turn to see the GP first. At 9, I was called in and he went through the usual test to ascertain my blurred vision wasn't due to some nerve problem. After passing every test with flying colours (except not being able to have full vision on my right eye), he sent me to the ophthalmologist who finally saw me at 11am. After explaining to him, he put some eye drops to dilate my eyes before he could examine it any further. I was told to sit outside for a good 15 minutes and was called in again.

Doc: Ok, let's take a look at it again. Mmmm....
Doc: Mmmm....Yup, it's a case of retina detachment
Me : Huh???
Doc : People with high myopia like you usually have a high risk of their retina tearing. Yours did and fluid started to seep in and eventually weighed it down, detaching it from the inner wall.
Me : Huh???
Doc : You can't go home now. You have to be warded and have to have an emergency operation. We will monitor you for the rest of today and the operation will be soonest tomorrow once the surgeon take a look at your eye.
Me : Okay...(In a state of shock!)

I was then sent to take a chest X-ray, ECG and they even took three tubes of my blood! Well, at least now I know that I'm healthy, it's just the eye! Ha Ha Ha....In my entire 38 years (almost 38) of life, I have never once be admitted into a hospital, you know, just have the occasional fever, cold, cough kinda thingy. The first time I walk into a hospital for a check up, I ended up being warded! Yes, I was in a state of shock alright. I had felt no pain in my eye. Apparently, when I had an increase of "floaters" (those funny "microscopic" things that seems to be floating in front of your eyes), it was a tell tale sign that my retina tore. Guess I was just unaware, the optometrist definitely never drew my attention to such matters. Optometrists should warn people like me, those who have high shortsightedness to be aware of such things so that we could seek treatment immediately. Seems that if I had gone earlier before the retina detached, all they do is just to fix up my eye with a laser to patch it back and I could walk out of the hospital on the same day itself. So, there I was, for the first time in my life in the hospital, sitting, sleeping and waiting for the morning to come, facing another long night. Family and friends (KA took this pic) came to visit and eventually left. I wasn't worried but I just wanted this whole ordeal to end as soon as possible.

To be continued ....

I learned a long time ago that minor surgery is when they do the operation on someone else, not you. ~ Bill Walton