I wanted to drop a note letting you all know what's going on with me right now. As some of you know, I have diabetes, and it's been a struggle these past few years with me to get my blood sugar under control. Well, a month ago, I visited Diabetes-America to get some help in getting this done. They did a retinal scan and noticed some abnormalities. So two weeks ago, I went to the eye doctor to get them looked at. They said that I had macular degeneration, which happens to diabetes patients. What happens is basically due to the diabetes that my eyes overcompensate and create vessels that shouldn't be there, and they leak into the eye and can cause undue pressure in the eye, which is one of the main reasons that diabetics can go blind. I'm having laser surgery to correct this: I had one operation last Thursday and I go back this Thursday for the other eye.
However, after my doctor visits, I was noticing that I was having difficulty focusing on my computer monitor and the television, and seeing details of anything. Everything looks blurry and it looks like I stared at the sun for too long. After my surgery on Thursday it didn't improve so I went to the doctor today to ask him what was going on.
I have in both eyes, what is known as a macular edema, when fluid collects behind the retina, causing my eyesight to blur. This is the second way that people go blind from diabetes. My doctor told me that in a way, my getting my sugars right was contributing to this because it caused fluid to build up behind my retinas. So what's going to happen now is that I'm going to get some medicine shot into both eyes to cause the fluid to go away, and that will be happening in a couple of weeks.
However, it is very unlikely that my eyesight will improve, and apparently over the coming years it will progressively get worse. I'm going to be going back to the doctors over the coming months to make sure my sugars stay good and to keep my eyesight as intact as possible.
As everyone knows, my big passion in life is movies and writing, reading, and talking about movies, so as you can imagine this is quite devastating to me. Over the weekend I watched the LORD OF THE RINGS movies for comfort because I was so depressed about this, and because since I've seen them so many times I could "see" what I was watching. I have no idea what's going to happen to me next. I count myself lucky that I have good health insurance, and I'm going to keep my sugars under control, but I don't know how this will affect my enjoyment of film and what this means for my life. Right now I can't consider a life without movies. I simply don't have a frame of reference for it. I do know that as my eyes are now, I'm having real problems watching anything on screen and although I hope that my eyes will get better and that I will do everything in my ability to make that happen, there's a real probablility that they won't improve. I plan on going to another doctor to see if he can tell me any different, but I've heard of this condition before in the early days of my dealing with this disease and what this doctor told me sounds about right.
Anyway, I just wanted you all to know what's been happening with me, and to please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I'm not a religious person, but I'd appreciate it anyway.
