Friday, January 21, 2011

Intro to me

Ah, where to start....

My name is Laura and I am a 26 year old female. I work full time as a teacher. I love to swim, enjoy traveling and spending time with my family and friends. All in all, I'm the typical adult....or am I?

After two years of teaching under my belt and several years or neglecting my eyes, I decided it was time to hit the eye doctor to get new contacts. On October 2, 2010, I had my normal eye exam with a new eye doctor since I had moved when I got my job. The doctor did his thing, but during one of the tests he noticed something strange on my eye. He called it a "hole" and told me in a long drawn out speech that it was serious but not serious enough to do anything about at this time. He said that if we didn't keep an eye on it, that it could eventually cause blindness. What?! I was very nervous to hear that and knowing that I have diabetes on both sides of my family, my eyes need to be taken good care of. Basically, he told me that it was likely caused by some sort of head trauma. We ended the appointment by ordering new glasses and contacts, and then made a follow up appointment for October 23rd.

October 23rd came and I went and picked up the glasses and contacts. The new contacts took a little getting used to since it was a big script change and a different type of contact, but I liked them. Throughout the three weeks between appointments I had started noticing what I call a yellow spiderweb in my field of vision, but for some reason it didn't alarm me. It was a very slow onset and didn't full click in that there was a problem until a few weeks later. At the appt. I told the doctor that I was very uncomfortable with just waiting out this eye problem and would like to get a second opinion. He referred me to a doctor that my aunt actually had seen for a similar problem, so I was comfortable going to the eye specialist. However, the earliest I could get in with the doctor was a month away.

I waited the long month and the yellow spiderweb appeared in my field of vision more, but again, it didn't alarm me too much because of the slow onset. When things happen so slow over time, you don't fully notice it. Hind sight is 20/20, right? On November 23rd, I saw the eye specialist. One of his assistants dilated my eyes and also used a numbing drops so that the testing he would do would not be too painful. The main testing done included me laying on the chair that was elevated to his height and having a very bright light shone into my eyes through glass. At this time, he saw that my optic nerves were swollen--something completely different than the reason why I went in. He brought me to another room for more testing. The next test--called Humphrey's or a Visual Field test was to take close pictures of my eyes and what I was or wasn't seeing. They took a series of photos and then injected dye into my blood and took another long serious of photos. This confirmed that my optic nerves were swollen. The doctor at this point was kind of avoiding me which made me nervous. He told the receptionist to call a neurologist and get me an appointment immediately--meaning later that day. After waiting in the waiting room for an hour while she tried to get me in with a neurologist, I finally had to know what was going on. I asked her if I could speak to the doctor again. She told the doctor and he took me back into his room. "What is going on? What do you think is wrong?" He said "I think you have a brain tumor. It's important that you see a neurologist today. We shouldn't wait." At this point the receptionist told him that she wasn't able to get me in later that day and asked what he wanted to do instead. "Get an MRI of the brain and orbits with and without contrast." I got the script and walked out to my car. I sat in my car and just cried. I was alone and scared.

**My headaches are getting bad right now, so I will have to stop and continue the introduction in my next post, hopefully tomorrow.**

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