blind lion
blind lion rescued by ADI. I’m rescued by Mrs. Lion.

It has been a while since I have posted to our blog. As Mrs. Lion wrote, I had some serious trouble with my one good eye. I suffer from glaucoma and the pressure in my right eye was getting to the point that it would be dangerous. The ophthalmologist wanted to install a tube in the eye that would relieve the pressure. The tube is supposed to have a valve in it that only lets the pressure go down to a point. The surgery to insert the valve was perfect. Later that day I could see normally from that eye. The trouble started the next morning.

When I woke up, I was completely blind. My right eye didn’t work at all, and of course, my left eye was already not functioning. Needless to say, I panicked. We had appointment with the ophthalmologist for the one-day follow-up from the surgery and reported the problem to him. He tested the pressure in the eye. The eye is supposed to have a pressure between 5 and 15. Below that number the eye can’t retain its shape and above that number glaucoma can take vision away by killing the optic nerve. My pressure was two. The ophthalmologist sent me to another doctor who specialized in retina and back of the eye problems. This doctor had a hard time seeing anything because of debris to the lens of my eye. She guessed that that was part of the problem.The original surgeon brought me back into the OR and reinflated my eye using a gel. The pressure was 10. Good! Unfortunately, the next day the pressure was back down to two. He repeated the procedure but also put sutures across the tube shutting off its ability to drain eye. The device that he inserted is defective. The valve that is supposed to control pressure doesn’t work. I’m reporting this prompt to the FDA and I plan to sue the manufacturer. Anyway, the retina doctor performed a surgery on Thursday and cleaned the gunk off lens. The pressure was holding since the tube had been sealed off.

When the bandage was removed the next morning, I could see! Unfortunately, everything is very blurry. I’m told that will take about a month from my eye to recover. It turns out that the eye is like a balloon. The fluid pressure inside keeps it inflated. When the pressure dropped because the defective device let the fluid out the back of my eye deflated like a balloon. And that’s what caused the trouble.Anyway, it was a very scary time for me. Being blind is amazingly difficult. Mrs. Lion was great and helped me deal with tasks of daily living. I have a good memory of the layout of our bedroom, bathroom, and some of the other rooms in the house. That helped me navigate by touch. Right now, I can see enough to find my way from room to room. I can’t read the screen and I’m using a voice device that’s built into Windows to take dictation so I can write this post. Mrs. Lion will edit it and get rid of the junk and the grammar that comes from this sort of writing.We are going to try some sex this weekend. I’m excited about that. It’s been several weeks. Sex was not high on my priorities when I was blind.One thing bothered me: Capitalize nobody commented when Mrs. Lion talked about my problem. I had hoped that some of my fellow bloggers would offer well wishes, but no one did. I know a lot of people read this blog. I also can tell from our statistics that many people read here. I’ll never understand what that means. Anyway, I’m sort of back and life for us is slowly returning to normal. Mrs. Lion won’t be able to spank me until my eye heals up to allow me to lie down on my stomach and accept the paddle. That’s probably a month away. I am very grateful that I can see.

 

He can see! It’s very blurry, but yesterday’s surgery was a success. We’re hoping things will get less blurry as time goes on. Apparently, the industrial strength medicine they use to dilate your eye for surgery keeping working for about a week after. That’s partially the cause of the blurriness.

I was trying to help him set his computer up to read things for him. It doesn’t help when the instructions say, “Click the start button.” If I can’t see well, how do I know where the start button is? Oh well. He can figure it out as he sees better.

To be fair, this week from hell started with an extra day off, so how bad could it really be? Ha! Tuesday started out with a long doctor appointment. The pressure in his eye was too high. We had to sit in the office until some eye drops brought the pressure down to a more acceptable level. Wednesday was an appointment with the retinal specialist. She decided it was time for surgery to clean out the debris from behind the lens and stabilize the retina. Thursday is surgery day. For the third week in a row, it’s surgery day.

We’re off to the hospital in a little while. The hope is that once the debris is cleared out, his vision should return. At the very least, they should be able to see into the eye better to see what else might be wrong. Do I see another Thursday surgery next week? I really hope not.

Lion goes from being depressed about not being able to see, to angry, to wanting to learn to live without being able to see, and back to depressed. He says I can’t understand what he’s going through. It’s true. Sure, I can close my eyes and pretend not to be able to see, but it’s not the same. The best I can do is be here to help him.