When I consider how my light is spent

Today was another of my appointments with my ophthalmologist.  I’ve been seeing him a lot recently because, when I went to see him last year after five years of “not being able to go because I couldn’t pay for a visit out of pocket,” he found I have a larger-than-usual optic cup in one eye.  He didn’t have any other recent data points, so he couldn’t say whether this was because I just had larger than normal optic cups or came from a very early case of glaucoma.  He had me come back in six months to be checked again.

The next visit or two gave . . . well, abnormal but not worrying results.  A retinal map showed that I have thin spots in both retinas, but again, nothing wildly out of range—in the yellow rather than in the red.  The last time I was in, a peripheral vision test showed a maybeso slight loss of peripheral vision.  However my intra-ocular pressures were normal to low-normal, which argued against me having glaucoma.

The results of today’s visit were more disturbing.  My intra-ocular pressures continue to be low-normal, but the peripheral vision test this time showed a distinct deterioration from previous visits, and the retinal map continued to show some abnormality.  Coupled with somewhat impaired low-light vision, which I’d noticed on my own a while ago, it suggests that I do have glaucoma, and never mind the pressure readings.

Today for the first time the ophthalmologist suggested that I may want to start taking medicine to reduce my intra-ocular pressure, even though it’s normal to low.  Possibly I have fragile, over-reactive retinas that won’t even stand up to normal pressures any longer.  He wants to have me come back in three months this time rather than six, and to see me in the early morning rather than late afternoon.  Intra-ocular pressures are the highest when you’re lying down and he’s got a better chance of catching something abnormal, if it’s there, early in the day.

The prospect of losing vision is one of the more distressing things I can imagine.  So many of the things I like to do are dependent on being able to see.  While I expect that I would learn ways to deal with it if it should happen (and it might not; if treated early, glaucoma can be managed almost indefinitely), the idea still frightens me.