death can't touch me

Wow. Were you floating above your lifeless body, looking down on it?

That's scary, craig. Glad you are ok. Share the experience in greater detail if you still have the cognitive wits to do so.

Jeepers, gam. Hope you're otherwise okay.

I guess God decided he didn't need a sign hanger just yet. Seriously, man. Take care of yourself. That sounds like some scary stuff.

Glad you didn't die, Craig.

The Lord has given you a sign. My church has two services this Sunday. Come to any one.

Thanks, guys. It's not as bad as feared AFAIK. It happened in my right eye. I had 2 aneurysms that burst. I was very strange. One happened Saturday morning and then again on Tuesday morning. Both times I had a spot in my vision that appeared matte gray. It started in the upper left part of my eye and gradually spread across the top, then down to where it literally blanked out the top half of my vision. When I closed my left eye, I could only see my face from the bottom of my nose down. Scary.

Anywho, by the time I got to my optometrist on Saturday, everything had cleared up and she couldn't see anything wrong. She did say though that it might be the warning signs of a stroke, so she wrote me a letter for the emergency room and told me to get my ass over there. Which of course I didn't because I'm a dumbass.

Anywhay, flash forward to Tuesday morning and the same thing starts up again. This time it only lasts like 15 minutes or so, and wasn't nearly as bad as Saturday. Only this time after it cleared up I was left with a couple of blind spots in my vision. One was rather small and in the lower part of my vision, the other was about twice as big and just to the right of the center. When I closed my eyes the spots looked the same as when you stare at a bright light and look away. I've actually had something similar happen a couple of times before but it always went away fairly quickly and I figured the same would happened in this case. It did not. Around 2:30 nothing had changed so I went back to my optometrist. She dilated my eye and was able to see that the blank spots were actually 2 hemorrhages inside my eye. She asked what the people in the emergency room told me on Saturday and wasn't very happy when I told her I didn't go. She told me to tear ass up there so I did.

Once I got admitted and the doc saw my eye and read the optometrist's letter, he ordered a full workup on me. The fear was that somehow I was producing blot clots and a stroke or brain aneurysm wasn't too far off. I gotta say, my butthole puckered up a bit at the news. So they gave me a room and the tests started. I got a blood work screen for cancer (there were concerns I had developed Lukemia). I got an ultrasound on my heart, neck and eye. I got 2 cat scans and then an MRI. You may remember from my last health issue that me and the MRI tube don't get along so well. The hospital didn't have an open MRI, so it was the tube or I'd have to wait who knows how long to get an open MRI somewhere else. They gave me 4 little white pills that they said would help with the anxiety and shoved my in the tube. I noped out at first but after a few minutes I convinced myself to get it done. It took about 15 minutes and I seriously had to find my happy place to get through it.

All the test came back negative. No cancer, not clotting not other aneurysms anywhere else. I went to a retina specialist yesterday and her best guess is that my higher-than-normal-but-not-high-enough-to-be-dangerous blood pressure, coupled with my higher-than-normal-but-not-high-enough-to-be-dangerous EYE pressure (that's what they measure with that puff of air), tripled with a smaller-than-normal-but-not-small-enough-to-be-dangerous opening for the artery that goes into the eye, somehow allowed pressure to build up in the artery and boom. She said that as far as she could tell this is an isolated incident, but it would be good to avoid strenuous activity that required bending over (like gardening, pegging, etc)

As far as the blind spots (the hemorrhages), the ophthalmologist (I saw one of those, too) didn't know if they would clear up or not but the retina specialist all but guaranteed they would, maybe in a month or so. I haven't really noticed a difference since Tuesday.

So now I get to take aspirin everyday and the eye doc gave me a prescription for some drops that are supposed to lower the eye pressure. I have to see my primary doc in a couple of weeks where I'm sure I'll finally be put on high blood pressure medicine. I have no idea if anything else is going to happen but I can tell you I'm about as jumpy as a jack rabbit during duck season.

Oh, and while I was in my hospital bed and the little girl was filling out my if-the-worst-happens-during-your-stay-who-gets-your-stuff paperwork, she asked for my religious preference. I said "none" if there's a blank for that, which she said "oh yea, of course". I said, "well, what I mean is that I'm atheist, if that's on there I'd like that checked". That kinda of took her back. She said I was the first one she had come across at the hospital. So all those religious nutters that says atheists flip the switch when their health is threatened, ya no.

That's a relief. I was worried you had a brain or aortic thing. You're just getting old and worn out. Good thing you quit smoking and dropped some weight. I'd pray for you, but you're a commie atheist (like me).

So I take it you're not gonna take cap up on his offer?

It’s conference finals this Sunday!

Looks like I’m not out of the woods yet, boys. At least, my eye isn’t. Seems like I have an artery that doesn’t like to let the blood flow through it very well. Gonna get a second opinion on it tomorrow. I might have to change my handle to popeye soon. :/

I've been getting similar eye things lately. From what I've researched, they're ocular migraines, though I never get the actual headache. Starts out as a little light dot and eventually evolves into a wider, trippin'-balls crescent shape. Takes about 20 minutes to eventually slide out of view. They're annoying as fuck. I get them maybe once a month. Has something to do with not getting enough blood in there. I'm also becoming more sensitive to sharp, bright lights like halogen headlights. Gonna be wearing some of those Yoko Ono blast shield shades one of these days.

I hope you get to see the pro football championship match.

Hope you don't lose your eye, Gam. But if you do, there's a lot of party trick potential in your future.

I've had ocular migraine episodes in the past. Or at least that's the label my doctor used, but my symptoms were different. They started out as floaters at the at the periphery of my vision with blurred vision in the center. I just couldn't focus on aything. It would last for 10 or 15 minutes and would be followed up with a dull headache for an hour or so. I had them every few days around lunch time for a few weeks. I had a few episodes at home and one while I was driving that scared the hell out of me. I went more than a year without one and had an isolated one a couple of months ago. I asked the doctor about it at my physical 2 years ago and she said it was hard to know a cause without tests immediately after one happened.

I'll add your name to the prayer list, Gam.

I'll pray too, gam. I'll choose one of the other gods, so we can double your chances. I'm kinda partial to Arawn.

I'm praying to Santa.

I've set up a shrine to Manos.

That might be handy in Craig's battle against his bloody eye.

Monday was the worst day so far in this ordeal. The vision getting blocked started at about 10:30 and basically lasted into evening, with varying degrees of severity. Sometimes it was so bad I couldn't really see anything out the eye at all. The top half was completely grayed out and the bottom was extremely blurry with muted color. My eye specialist change the diagnosis from a simple matter of high pressure to "arterial occlusion" caused by a smaller than normal artery getting squeezed next to another one. She said there's not way to treat it surgically. All I can do is treat it with drops to lower the pressure in my eye and to get on blood pressure medicine immediately. She then told me it's got a very good chance of just getting progressively worse no matter what we did to treat it. Needless to say I freaked out a bit.

I called the office of my mother's eye doc. He's operated on her eye a couple of times and has a shit ton of experience. He wasn't available until next Wednesday but one of his associates was available yesterday. After he takes photos and scans of my eye and retina he said it's a blood clot in a vein, not an artery, and he "sees them all the time, it should break up and you'll be fine". I'm like, "okay, so like, are we talking 100% guarantee here or what?" He wouldn't go that far but said that I have a great chance of recovering 100% (or I could lose all vision in the eye but let's not think about that). He also wouldn't tell me how long the clot will take to break up (if it every does) but he talked like it would be sooner than later. I couldn't pin him down on timelines or recovery percentages because he couldn't "predict the future".

The episode on Monday really did a number on my eye. I could see 2 hemorrhages before and sometime Monday afternoon, I noticed there was a new one just under the large one that's just off the center of my vision. At one point during the episode it was so sever that I thought I had hemorrhages developing right in the center of my vision (that's when my freakout was full on) but it subsided. When the doc showed my a photo of my eye yesterday I saw that there are at least a dozen hemorrhages in my eye now. He also told me my retina was inflamed and recommended a get a shot to reduce the inflammation and swelling. A shot. In the eye. Not fun. I really hope I don't have another day like Monday.

Tuesday I had a small episode that lasted maybe 10-15 minutes. This morning I had a another that might have lasted 5-10. I hope that trend keeps up.

So at this point I really don't know what's going to happen. I'm taking the meds and hoping for the best. The doc told me that sitting and staring at a computer all day for a stressful job wouldn't help nor hurt, so I'm back at work today and trudging on.

The liberal way.

I wanna know more about the shot in the eye.

It sounds as bad as a toothpick in the peehole.

I work with a guy whose wife made him jalapeno poppers. However, she didn't tell him there were toothpicks in them. He ate 4 until he realized. He had to go to the ER and get poked in the butt to get rid of them.

A shot in the eye is every bit as bad as it sounds, and no, doc, there was not just a "slight pinch". That shit hurt and still does a bit.

Wednesday last week was the last time I had an issue with the blood clot (meaning, no vision loss). Since no pain is involved, something very well can happen overnight while I slept and I'd never know. That's one of the weird anxieties that I'm dealing with. I could wake up one day and be permanently blind in one eye, just because. Fucking hell.

If that second doc is to be believed then I can optimistically think that maybe the blood clot has already broken up (maybe on that hell Monday last week) and that the two little "episodes" on Tuesday and Wednesday were "after shocks" or something. Since it can't be detected on a scan there's no way to tell if it's there or not. All I can do is keep taking my blood pressure medicine the drops that lower the pressure in my eyes.

Speaking of blood pressure meds, the one I'm taking isn't doing enough so my doc doubled the dosage. A couple of days later I read where there's a batch of this drug that may have something in it that causes cancer. I guess I need to call my pharmacy. Also, even doubling the dosage doesn't seem to do much. I've been monitoring my BP but for the most part it hasn't really changed.

Didn't you just turn 50? It sounds like your warranty expired.

I should probably just be parted out at this point.

How is your eye situation?

Had another appt yesterday with the specialist, akshoouhlee. My retina is doing fine (no inflammation = NO FUCKING NEEDLE IN MY FUCKING EYE) so that's good. It's been a full 6 weeks since I had the first episode and developed the first 2 hemorrhages that are causing the blind spots. I was told that they usually clear up in 4-8 weeks. He didn't take photos this time but he said he could tell the hemorrhages are looking better. If they are getting better then they are taking their fucking sweet time about it. I go back in 4 weeks. I am hoping by that time there has been some significant improvement.

Saw the doc yesterday. I still have the blind spots in my eye even though the hemorrhages are clearing up. Turns out the blind spots are actually nerve damage. Might get better, might not. Probably won't. Fuck me, at least the spot isn't right in the center of my vision. I have a feeling I'm going to end up as blind as Bill Cosby if I live that long.

Seems you've had a lot of health issues since you quit smoking. ijs

but too soon

It'll be 10 years in October. I may smoke a pack to celebrate the anniversary.