Free at last!

Pre-surgery. That dark triangle in the center shouldn't be there

Yesterday was my FINAL follow-up appointment with the retina specialist. He poked and prodded and dilated and numbed and finally, FINALLY, gave me the all clear.

He showed me some of my scans and I took pictures, for my own reference and also so everyone can see what kind of weird things your body can do in places you can't see.

I'm at about 90% now. He said I may improve beyond that, and I might not. But I'm no longer at risk of anything becoming detached, and I see just about the same as I did before the surgery. My vision was never an issue - I'm massively near-sighted, with or without other problems.

One thing he mentioned to me today that I thought was interesting, or at least his explanation of it was. My right eye, the one that was operated on, is also a lazy eye. That was diagnosed when I was 9, when I got my first glasses, and they made me do all kinds of exercises like focusing on a pencil and drawing it toward my nose without crossing my eyes. It helped. Maybe.

From another angle. You can actually see the hole at the top

He said it really didn't, and that the only way to completely correct a lazy eye is to diagnose it at a much earlier age. He's actually working on a toddler-age video game that can test vision, for this reason. But he said that my eye is still lazy, and though I think I'm looking through both eyes equally, my brain isn't used to focusing that one, so I need to try harder.

He explained it like meditation. "You're supposed to be emptying your mind, but a thought will creep in. You notice the thought, but then you bring your mind back to the meditation. Same thing - you'll notice that you're not fully focusing with both eyes. Just bring the right eye back, and keep going." His theory is that by doing it that way, I'll build up more of a habit.

9/23 - almost smooth again. It still might flatten out more over time

PI don't know how right he is. I'm just glad to be seeing the last of him, for reasons having nothing to do with him personally.