Monday, August 8, 2011

It Ain't Easy Bein' Green

In my post about painting the bedroom (seen here) I alluded to my having been sick recently.

The sort-of fast version of the history is: I had a branch retinal artery occlusion (a stroke in my eye) in my left eye a few years ago.  It was basically a pain free sun spot that wouldn't go away.  It got better in about 3 months, scared the crap out of us, and despite tons of testing, they never found a cause, other than to say that maybe it was caused by migraines.  ie: I have small vessels and maybe they spasm-ed down during a migraine, cutting off blood flow to part of my eye.

Fast forward: I thought I had another one in my right eye.  Ended up in the on-base emergency room on a Sunday night.  They gave me meds to reduce the pressure in my eye.  Checked me out the next day and there is no sign of it.  So maybe I was imagining it, or maybe the meds just corrected it.  My eye sight is better now a week later, and that's sort of all that matters.

The only reason I bother telling you any of this is to sort of snicker at myself. They did a Fluorescein Angiogram where they gave me this dye through an IV line and took tons of pictures of my retinas while the dye was going through my veins. I think I know how celebrities feel when they're hounded by the paparazzi now. The flashing was crazy. And the dye left me feeling a bit....green. And looking it too. It didn't help that I was wearing a greenish shirt either. Or big buggy sunglasses.  So, as my mom was laughing at me for looking green (which we needed to do to get out the tension from the day's events) she took a picture of me in my alien froggyness:

I rather blend right into that bush, dontcha think?  Don't worry, it went away :)  But Kermit had it right: it ain't easy bein' green.


EDIT: it lasted about 5 hours...glad it wasn't longer!

1 comment:

  1. I gotta admit... that looks really weird! How long did it last?

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