At least that is what I thought when I had my annual (and by annual I mean my triannual) visit to the eye doctor today.
Everything started out just fine. I went in, sat down in the little chair, ready to have that blast of air shot into each of my eyes. See, in the past, this had been the most stressful part of the eye doctor for me. I just don't like it. Not that it is painful, but the anticipation of when that blast of air is going to shoot in my eye pretty much drives me crazy. Well, little did I know the air blast would be the least of my worries.
The next test was to determine if there were any problems with my peripheral vision. You look through one eye and focus on this black dot and click a button when you see lines moving in your peripheral vision. Not too hard, right? Riiiight. When we were doing my right eye I didn't have many problems but I constantly worried that I was missing some and began to sweat a bit due to the pressure. Then it really got tough. On to the left eye. Same thing happened with the pressure, but what I wasn't counting on was this darkness that kept seeping into my vision field and by darkness, I mean completely black as if my eyes were closed.
Then I really started to freak out. What was going on? Was I seeing all of the little blips I was supposed to? Why was my vision deteriorating just from sitting in that chair? Why couldn't I focus on that damn dot? "This is what happens when you don't go to the eye doctor when you are supposed to and wear your two week disposable contacts for the better part of 4 months," I hear every eye doctor I have ever had echo in my brain.
The test ended and I waited for the doctor. He did ask me some questions...was I having problems with my vision, etc...I told him that no, it was not until I was being tested that I began to go have trouble. As I am sure any of you with a brain or a similar experience (or both) know, he explained that I was seeing black because my dominant eye was trying to take over and since it saw black, it tried to tell my left eye that was what it should see as well. So...whew...I am not going blind. Yet. He did chide me a little about not having been back in so long, but at least he put my fears of sudden blindness to rest. And I thought going to the gyno was stressful.
Posted by Morgan
at 4:29 PM EDT
