It's my cornea! Ugh! I have this thing called Keratoconus in which my cornea is pointed and not rounded like a normal cornea.
Here's a pic...
In college it was discovered I had this condition and treatment is usually pretty simple -- just wear a "hard" contact lens that smooths out the cornea like it should be (keep in mind I cannot wear glasses so I can really only "see" for 14 hours a day). So, I started to wear hard contact lenses. But, a year later my cornea "ruptured" and I had a condition called corneal hydrops. My vision was blurry for a few weeks and luckily the tear was below my vision line so no further treatment was required.
Now -- let's jump 10 years later to now. My corneas are pretty thin because of the pointedness and there is a lot of scaring on my eye. While I can see 20/30 w/contacts (which is great for someone with keratoconus) time is ticking until I need future treatment which in my case is a corneal transplant. It's as bad as it sounds. I get someone elses cornea and recovery takes months (meaning I won't regain useable vision for 6 months to a year). So, my doctor told me about this new procedure (I mentioned this in an earlier post) that might "save" me from having a transplant in both eyes. It's called corneal collegen crosslinking (check out cxlusa.com).
This past Friday I was scheduled to have it done in my right eye (only one eye at a time) and recovery would only be a week (contact lens back in by next Friday). My left eye would be done in October and that would be a five week recovery due to it being more "thin" but that's another story. Anyhow -- my mom drove me to the doctor's office, I paid the huge amount of money (it's not FDA approved) and I was ready to go. But, the doctor walks in and says "before we do this..." and I knew it wasn't good news. Turns out there was new research that stated cross linking on eyes that had hydrops could result in another case of hydrops (horrible!!) and most likely would lead to a corneal transplant. Ugh! So, to make this long story shorter -- I opted to not do it. She suggested doing an "altered" version of the procedure, but at that point I knew I was truly going to be a guinea pig and I got a horrible feeling in my stomach. Why in the heck would I risk my vision? What a major bummer.
So, needless to say it was an emotional day on Friday (although the crab dip at Clydes did help -- thanks mom!!!) -- knowing that this isn't an option for me (at least in my right eye) and hearing in my head (over and over) my doctor saying "I think you are being irrational". Give me a break! I now have to accept the fact that I may have to go through with a corneal transplant after all. I'm still in a little bit of shock and mainly a lot of denial. If I didn't have three kids this would be a no brainer -- but I'm 30 years old with no "short term disability" from parenthood. OK -- I'll stop be depressing.
By the way -- speaking of Parenthood -- it premiered last Tuesday at 10pm. Check it out! Great show! It's one of the only shows that Jeff and I both agree on watching!
Also -- another quick review -- Jeff and I did not like Dear John. It premiered on Starz last night and we were a little disappointed. I think my Dad put it best -- there was a major lack of character development in some of the characters. But, Berta noted that the actual book does a better job of that. So, as usual -- the book I guess is better than the movie!
No comments:
Post a Comment