Macular Degeneration

Arghhhhh

My new reality is wavy lines, distorted pictures, and letters moving on the page while I am trying to read. It’s not too bad though, because I’ve had a first treatment on both eyes, and the progression of my rather psychedelic vision has been arrested.

I was diagnosed on June 14th. When I described my peculiar wavy horizontal lines to my friends the weekend before, they suggested I get this checked out. I didn’t think much of it, but thought I might as well since I still have access to my eye doctor in Saint Peter. In about a month from then we were moving to Oregon, and I’d have to look for a new eye doctor on top of all the moving activities that would surely take up all my time. Might as well get this over and done with. Probably just a minor vision thing that could be cleaned up by laser from my implanted cataract lenses. The morning before I went to see Dr. Zack, I googled my symptoms, and was quite shocked. Age related macular degeneration popped up immediately. The last time I heard those words was about thirty years ago when a European acquaintance said she had it and that she was going blind. Dr. Zack dilated and scanned my eyes with multiple expensive looking machines and confirmed Dr. Google’s diagnosis, wet macular degeneration.

“We can treat it.”

The best thing I’d heard in years, circumstances, politically and socially in this country being what they are. It can be treated. I will not go blind.

Dr. Zack showed me the scans of my eyes and the irregular mess of blood vessels where there should be just a straight line. “You’ll get medicine, delivered via an injection right to this spot,” he said. A needle in my eye! Oh great! But I won’t go blind. I’ll take the needle. “I’ll refer you to a retina specialist. They’ll numb the eye. It won’t be as bad as it sounds.”

A week later, I’m in Minneapolis with Dr. Jones, the retina specialist, who scans my eyes again, showing a deterioration in just one week. Dr. Jones is very kind and gentle and explains every step as he goes along. The numbing drops, the cleaning drops, more numbing drops, the eyelid clamp to prevent me from blinking, the jab. It is so quick that I have doubts it can deliver the medicine into the eye. The syringe must be like a pistol that expels the bullet the same time the trigger is pulled. Then moisturizing drops, lid clamp removed, I blink, and it’s done. Dr. Jones treats only one eye because he needs to see how I tolerate the treatment. I have an appointment ten days later for the second eye. And yesterday, he treated the second eye after another quick scan of both eyes. The treated eye already showed some improvement, some shrinking of the clump of blood vessels that distort my vision.

So the treatments have started. My eyes will not get worse. Dr. Jones referred me to a retina specialists in Oregon near our new home. Both eyes will need to be treated every four to five weeks until the blood vessels shrink sufficiently for my vision to return to normal, and then every two to three months to maintain normal or near normal vision.

In less than two weeks we will depart for Oregon. We will caravan there with our good friends, Tom and Diann, who are also moving to Oregon to be near their grandchildren. We will have three cars and four drivers. I will have to do some driving. I asked Dr. Jones if he would be a passenger in a car I’m driving to Oregon. “I love Oregon,” he said. “No, no! I mean, would you let me drive you there?”

“You’re legal to drive,” he said.