Diary of a Wonky-Eyed Girl

17 Sept 2012

Possibly the most unglam photo of me online-just before my discharge from the American Hospital of Paris. But with my seeing eyes wide open and oh so happy!

It has been exactly two months since my delicate emergency eye operation in Paris. How fast does time fly? Some of my lady friends are still teasing me about being 'fancy', to end up in, of all cities, gay Paree, with a surgery. After the surgery, I still had about 6 weeks’ worth of holidays, half of which was spent mostly in Europe. I had three weeks left upon our return to KL which was spent with follow up check-ups with my KL doctor then a few relaxing days in Singapore with my second sister and a couple of precious nights in Phuket with my husband sans children. Despite the one long haul flight home and 6 short haul flights that I had undertaken since my surgery, I am all good.

My eye about 2.5 weeks after the surgery- in Amsterdam.

Apart from that I have been home, trying to do what I DON’T do best. Relax, rest and stay still. About 3 weeks ago, I went back to work, and though challenging, I am getting used to it by now though it involves a lot of fine eye work!

On a daily basis people, I have colleagues and students asking me about my eye. People are quite sweet and very genuine with their concerns. Some are quite direct, others, nosey. Like one day last week, the library girls asked me why one eye was smaller than the other. It’s so Malaysian and so in your face and I patiently explained to them the lazy eye syndrome as I am not using my right eye as much. They looked shocked & almost felt sorry for me! Or when an elderly church member exclaimed loudly, ‘Wah, your eyes are still red, ah, you poor thing! You must Lie Down, Lie Down!” or this other person who kept making MY eye problem HER issue! or they stare, and ask if I am in pain. I am not! I think next time, I’ll just keep my sunglasses on and spare people the awkwardness. But mostly & thankfully, people are kind and concerned.

About 4 weeks after my surgery, back home in KL.

So I thought I’d write a diary.

You know that endearing classic Van Morrison song, “Brown- eyed girl”? Now hubby sings that song to me except he has changed the lyrics to ‘you’re my WONKY eyed girl. It’s one of my all-time favourite songs, so I don’t mind. “Wonky”, my eye still is though my visual acuity(with silicone oil) is now about 6/12 or 6/15 on most check -ups. I had to go off my steroid drops because my ocular pressure shot up so now I am steroid free. However at the last check up, my opthalmologist has detected that I am starting to show signs of cataract. I wasn’t surprised as my dad had his cataracts done when he was only 38. I know cataract problems are usually linked to geriatrics. I am hardly one, YET, but my eyes apparently are. SO he will monitor it at my next retinal examination, and he may just FIX ME UP at my next surgery when he removes the silicone oil. And NO, I am NOT going back to Paris for the second surgery and to do a spot of shopping, ladies! Though it's very tempting!

Every day is still a blessing. I did not go blind. I am blessed. I can see! Medical science and amazing surgeons do exist and they are great.

I have heard of WORST cases of retinal detachments.

I have been lucky. Last week I stumbled upon a blog by a guy in Canada who had 4 successive retinal detachments on the same eye and finally, he had a similar eye operation as mine, but he kept going blind. He stopped updating his blog at the end of Sept 2009, so I shudder to think what would have happened to him. I only hope he’s fine.

My scary wonky eye look!

I have got used to relying on my untreated eye MORE which has become a habit, which is bad for my treated eye, so I had to change the prescription of my glasses temporarily to even out both eyes. Hey, bring it on, last week my GOOD eye came down with conjuntivitis, as though saying “GIVE ME A BREAK!” Sometimes I go without my contact lens on the untreated eye so I use my wonky eye so it doesn’t get lazy or smaller. I try to read with only my wonky eye only for at least 20 minutes a day. I also test my eye sight by closing one hand one each eye on a daily basis, sometimes a few times a day! :) At the back of my mind, I worry a little bit about my 'good' eye too. The French doctors have discovered that I have signs of lattice degeneration( where the periphercal retina becomes atrophic) on that eye. Laser thereapy has been recommended but my opthalmologist here says to leave it alone at the moment. Let the macula-off retinal detachment eye recover as much as it can first.

As I shared in my poem, I am VERY paranoid of floaters now- any spots, or flying mosquito or black dots in the distance can sometimes shake me to the core. At my morning hill walk today, I saw a bird in the distance, and thought it was a floater in my eye, that’s how scary it gets, sometimes. But mostly I am very calm. I am very conscious of my head position especially when lying down. I try not to look up at the ceiling AT ALL COSTS. I still sleep on my side, or on my front, very conscious of the viscousity of the oil in my eye. A couple of weeks ago, I made the mistake of looking up into the sky when taking a shower, and saw bits of floaters ABOVE the silicone oil level, and panicked. My dr here says it’s ok, it’s the oil that’s causing the instability inside my eye. It looks like we are going to have the silicone oil removal surgery on the first week of Oct. My KL surgeon is going to France for most of September and he shoots off to Italy for a congress in mid Oct and he wants be around from early Oct till mid Oct to monitor me in case there are any complications post-silicone oil removal.

Fingers crossed. SO my next surgery using local anaesthesia will most likely be on Oct 3.

In these 2 months, I have heard of 3 other people having retinal detachments over the summer. So I know I am not alone, one man is in his 50s, a lady in her 30s and a young man, just 22. So it’s not exactly an age thing. One guy I know can't play tennis anymore as he keeps missing the ball! Thank goodness I am not into contact sports.

I have gone back to most normal activities. I can drive easily but gently with one side of my contacts. I have resumed my weekend 12km hill walks by mostly looking down, and I stop myself from running on rough pavements. I haven’t started swimming again, at least with my head fully submerged in the pool. Because of the incisions in my eye, sometimes the redness flares up, especially now that I am off my steroid eye drops. I am not sure how chlorine will react to it but I am sure it will be ok.

The specialist eye centre that I go to in KL is always FULL of patients!

I still daren’t go for my monthly facial yet, lest the manipulations cause any redetachment. I can’t walk our big dog Sparky, as he’s huge and he might yank my eye off. Luckily, I don’t wear any eye make-up so that hasn’t been an issue at all. I have been taking more berries of all kinds- goji berries, blue berries, eye berries:)and been drinking copious amounts of fresh carrot juice. For whatever it’s worth, if they don't help my eyes, I am keeping my other internal organs healthy. It's funny that it takes something like this to force me to keep my head down, literally!

I miss, miss, miss CARRYING my 5 year old and swinging him about. He’s about 20kg and that’s the weight that I am not supposed to haul, at least not yet until I am a 100% sure I am ok. My greatest struggle really is to remember that I need to take it easy. But sometimes that's easier said than done.

My students, bless them, are used to seeing me teach in my shades as sometimes the glare from the sunlight outside or the florescent lighting in the classroom can be unsettling. There is no pain, but just a mild discomfort when the glare hits my eye. I can also feel that my cataract is setting in. Oh joy!

I still hate getting my eyes dilated every time I am at my eye clinic. The KL dilation drops seem to be so potent that I feel awful for hours on end- and can’t use my eyes to read for at least 6-7 hours afterwards. The nurse says it's because my iris is too small that they have to top up the dilation dose for me. The ones in Paris were fine after just a couple of hours. I am not comparing.

As for reading, it’s part and parcel of my occupational hazard so how do I cut down on that? I must know when to rest my eyes when they get tired.

In the meantime, being wonky-eyed has its perks- I get to wear my Chanel shades all the time, get cat-whistled, “Hey, Jackie O,” and my Year 7s think I am a dictionary with cool shades, and best of all, my other half has hired a personal driver to chauffeur me around. What more could a girl ask for?

I could SO get used to THIS! Wonky eyed tai-tai!

And please don’t laugh at my eye pictures here- they were a personal photo journal to track the progress of my healing!

I am keeping everything crossed & praying that Oct 3/4 will be a success!

Till then, c'est la vie!

A bit of wonky-eyed glamour!

R- Sept 17 2012