Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara logo

A Vision Scare

Today, thank goodness, Vince was off. I worked in the garden for a while this morning, then . . you guessed it .  . he needed to go to town.  I had to take a shower before we went and when I got in the shower, with shiny (or they’re supposed to be shiny) white walls, I kept seeing something out of the corner of my right eye. It looked like a bug on the shower wall.  When I would turn my head to get a closer look . . it was gone. I didn’t think much about it but it looked like a piece of black fuzz in my vision.

We went to town, made a few stops, he talked me into eating Chinese, noticed a nail in the back tire (always something, huh?), went by the tire shop, our dentist was in there and I like her a lot (she makes her own yogurt and cans!) so we had a good chat, got the tire fixed and we came home. I was going to take a nap!  While in the bathroom, with the shiny white walls of the shower, I again noticed the fuzz but this time there was much more. About half of my vision in the right eye was completely covered by these wiggly spider web looking things and it was making me dizzy and feeling sick.

I took the iPad to bed with me and googled “spider webs in vision” and the first thing I found said “Call your doctor immediately!” I got out bed, called the doctor. It was about 1:40 p.m.  Told the lady on the phone that I was seeing black spider webs in my right eye. She said “How quickly can you get here?” By now, I was getting concerned. We were at the eye doctor for almost three hours – all kinds of tests and I have Posterior Vitreous Detachment and Floaters. I did have a hemorrhage, and 70% of folks who have the vitreous detachment, along with a hemorrhage, end up with a torn or detached retina, so the odds are that I’m going to have to have surgery to work on this little issue.

We have a wonderful eye doctor here and I’m so glad we switched to him last  year.  He is a Clemson graduate (and so is Vince so they hit it off right away) and he was an engineer before he was an eye doctor. He was able to take an ultrasound of my eyes. He does not do surgery . . I would have to go to Abilene for that. Our doctor gave me his cell phone number and told me to call him if I have any problems over the weekend and he will get me in touch with the surgeon in Abilene . . day or night. If I have no further problems, he will repeat all the scans in 2 weeks and see if anything has changed and  whether I need to go ahead and have surgery.

The posterior vitreous detachment issue seems to come along with age . . not really anything I did to cause it but having a vision problem of this magnitude definitely scared me half to death.

You know what I kept thinking while going through all the tests? I have a whole lot of yarn to knit and I wonder if I can knit if I’m blind in one eye! There’s a slim to almost no change of losing vision completely, though right now, I can’t see a lot out of my right eye . . it will clear up .

And the worst part of all of . . I never got my nap!

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Awful….I can’t imagine not being able to see all the beautiful colors in the world. Take care and I’ll be praying for a positive outcome 🙂

  2. You did absolutely the right thing by calling right away and not waiting. Praying for good report in two weeks. And yes you silly, you can knit with vision in only one eye – I do – but isn’t it funny the things that run through our head when something like that happens. But Good Lord willing, you won’t need to worry about that.

  4. Wow! That would be scarey!!! Glad you gave a good Dr close by……..prayers for full recovery and hopefully no surgery! Hugs to you………sorry you missed your nap…..????

  5. Getting old is not fun. Two summers ago, I had the vitreous detachment in the right eye and I thought that I had a big blob of yarn in my eye. I didn’t need surgery and the big blob eventually broke up, though I still get floaters. The most annoying thing is what I call jelly floaters – it’s clear but just distorts the vision. Last year, the left eye had the detachment, but it was minor compared to the right eye.

    Glad you went to the doctor – this is one incident that they’ll just tell you to come in, just in case it is a retinal tear, which can only be fixed by surgery. So, please call the doc if you start having light flashes or more floaters. And don’t be surprised if you get a bit bummed about it all. It takes a while to get used to the floaters and they mess up reading. Eventually, I think your brain starts ignoring the floaters.

    I just wish that the floaters can be something other than black – a bit of color “yarn” would be nice.

    • Right after I posted that comment, I thought I was having those light flashes. Nope, just a few fireflies outside my window! Have a happy 4th!

  7. Ugh, Judy, I hope you don’t have to have surgery. This is something I haven’t experienced yet, and I hope I won’t, but I’m not getting any younger. Where are those rejuv shots they keep saying they’re going to invent?

  8. WOW, Judy, that is SCARY! I’ve worried off and on for quite some time about going blind because I’m diabetic. Don’t know if I would’ve thought about googling it but isn’t that google a wonderful thing?! I use it all the time. Glad V was home and hopefully next trip to dr. will be a good report! Did they tell you not to bend down and work in the garden? Just wondering since that increases the pressure in your eyes and didn’t know if that would affect the problem.

  9. I have floaters, and I always think about detached retinas. I notice the floaters most when I’m looking at web pages with white backgrounds…after a while my brain adjusts and I don’t notice them as much. The black, fuzzy would really freak me out!

  10. A dear friend of mine just went through the same thing. Very SCARY.
    Take care of yourself.

  11. I’m so glad you went and got it all checked out so quickly, Judy! I’ll be sending up prayers that it rectifies on it’s own, without the surgery. I know you had to be scared silly. I know that I was, when I got “fractured vision” with my mini-strokes and stroke. And I understand where your mind went, too. First thing Don understood me saying after my stroke was “Can’t quilt anymore”, even though it was a little garbled. 8 years later, I’m still thanking God for blessing me with my recovery. 🙂
    Eve

  13. As a quilter with vision issues requiring surgery, I send you all the best wishes for healing and recovery … and … “just keep sewing” … <3 Pat

  14. WOW, isn’t google wonderful. Glad you have a great Doctor. Take care will pray for a complete recovery. Good luck with the next round of tests.

  15. Having access to all the information on the Internet is a godsend! I have had torn retinas in both eyes, which they claim is serious but not uncommon as we age. Luckily for me, one of the top eye specialists in the world is in my area so the day after diagnosis, I was having laser surgery to repair the tear. The second time it happened I knew the symptoms, it happened the day the specialist was doing rounds at my local clinic, and the laser surgery was done immediately . The surgery is quick, painless and very effective. Every year the eye doctor checks the repairs and 10 yrs later, everything is in tact. God bless modern techniques! I was in and out of the clinic in less than 2 hours and that’s counting the time it took in waiting my turn, and the time for the eye drops to dialate the eye.

  16. I had the same thing a couple of years ago. I was starting out on an hour long drive to my home when I kept seeing flashes out of the corner of my right eye. My mother thought I was having a stroke. I got home, called my eye doctor and he told me to get into Wills Eye Hospital in Philly. My husband had been sleeping but woke up when he heard me talking to the doctor. Since he was so groggy, I drove to the hospital. Needless to say, he had to drive home. The ironic thing is that the week before I had been going round and round with my insurance company about paying for a routine eye exam. Now they were on the hook for emergency room work and the most through eye exam I had in my life!

  17. Thinking of you and sending prayers for a fast recovery!

  19. I can imagine how you were reacting to the fuzzyies. I have always said that of the five senses, I value my eyes and eye sight the highest. I wish you the best.

  20. Judy, I am sooo sorry you are having problems with your eyes. As a knitter/quilter person it is important to be able to see. I am praying that your condition doesn’t worsen & that all goes well with your next check-up in 2 weeks. I don’t knit, but I do crochet & as you can tell I do follow your website (have made several of your quilts). I became legally blind in my left eye 23 years ago (only see light & dark shadows basically) & I’m here to tell you, YES you can still knit & quilt & just about anything you want…driving gets to be more difficult 🙂 Prayers, best wishes, & good luck. You’re an inspiration!

  21. I went in also for floaters, but didn’t know what it was. Apparently, it was “the biggest one he has seen”. Oh great. I don’t notice it all the time, but I do notice it a lot, especially when driving. Have to keep blinking or rolling my eyes to get it out of the way! I have bad eyes, and they have told me for a very long time to watch for the torn retinas. So, I kind of freak every time I think something is going on. Hope you heal and don’t need surgery. One of those weird things we all have, I have a phobia of eye surgery….

  22. I am praying for you. That is sure a scary experience! Our eye sight is so precious!

  23. Hoping for all the best with this issue, Judy…..My eyesight is the one thing that has always concerned me (mostly because my grandmother lost her eyesight – just fuzzy vision the last years of her life). Will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

  25. Been in your spot…I thought that I was having a stroke because I also had a headache, was dizzy and felt a little nauseated. Thank heaven it was not a stroke, but my doctor told me to watch for bright flashes and call him as soon as I have them. I still have the floater, but I have learned to live with them.

  27. Yep, been there and couldn’t wait until that knot of fuzzy yarn finally settled to the bottom of the eye. Most heal without any aftereffects-have even had cataract surgery since then and no recurrence. So, just keep your head as still as possible for a week or so and things should be fine. If it ain’t one thing going wrong after 60 it’s another! Just thankful they don’t all happen at the same time! Hang in there and life will go on1 🙂

  28. Wow. I’m so glad you were able to get to the eye doc to get it checked. I was just thinking that I need to schedule an appt. with my eye specialist. You’ve convinced me!

  29. Thinking of you, Judy. I had a similar experience, but instead of black webs, I had the light flashes. There was really no pain, but lots of grayish little doughnuts. The doctor said it was blood in the eye and that I had had a tear of the something lining of the eye…no damage to the retina. He has checked me often since and everything is going well. My DH had a ‘stroke’ in his right eye and lost vision. It has been the hardest thing on both of us! Blessings.

  30. Isn’t aging fun? I had a vitreous detachment several years ago. I now have what my doctor likes to call ‘the mother of all floaters’ in my left eye, but it is slowly, and I mean VERY slowly, sinking through the goop in my eye towards the bottom. I generally only notice it if I’m reading a newspaper, but sometimes it seems like it come cruising across my line of vision out of the blue. I’m glad it wasn’t more serious Judy, and that whatever you need to have done proves to be minimal and has a quick recovery rate!

  31. Judy,

    I am glad that you went!! I started seeing ‘flashes’ but, working at AWX, I put them off to tourists w/ their cameras. I ended up with a detached retina in 2010. I had laser surgery, and all has been well … but, as I was warned, I am developing a cataract. We’re watching it closely, and will have a lens replacement (similar to lasik).

    Blessings!

    Ida

  32. Thinking of you and keeping you in prayer – my Mom had a detached retina and had a buckle put in. She is doing great. I lost 100% of my vision when our son was 4 months old – scared the crud out of me – it was a rare virus in my retina and thankfully, I regained my eyesight after about 6 weeks and numerous visits to specialists. Thankfully, you have a good team to keep an eye on you – hope your eye heals itself.

Discover more from Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading