Dowsing for Divinity

On Thursday evening last week, I had flashes in my peripheral vision. At lunchtime on Friday, I saw an alarming dark plume entering my visual field from the lower left. It then spread across my eye until it looked rather like the Horsehead Nebula.

CW: if you’re squeamish about medical details, don’t read on.

I had flashes again on Friday evening and Saturday evening. I made an optician appointment for Saturday morning but they said to go to the ER. So I went to Emerg / the ER / A&E on Sunday and waited to be seen which was not too bad (they triage you quite quickly and the chairs are very comfortable). While I was waiting, I finished reading In Charm’s Way by Lana Harper, and started Embertide by Liz Williams. The ER doctor then referred me to an ophthalmology clinic for first thing Monday morning.

I made a graphic of what the floaters looked like but it was very approximate— they looked like skeins of algae floating in water.

It turned out that the reason I have giant black floaters was that there was a hole in my retina, which was causing blood to leak into my eye, and my vitreous was detached. My ophthalmology appointment was at 9 am. The ophthalmologist said, yes that’s a huge floater, no wonder it’s annoying. I said, thank you, I feel validated. I then had to wait till 4pm for the actual lasering. The clinic was 1.5 hours away by bus so I decided there was no point going home and coming back again and stayed in Kitchener for the day. Had breakfast (I’d been told not to eat in case they needed to anaesthetize me, which they would have done for a detached retina), looked at the very small number of shops in the area, went for a walk, then finally found a friend who was free for lunch, and found a very nice cafe for lunch and had a lovely catchup. Awesome.

At 4pm, they cauterized the hole in my retina  with a laser. They had to dilate my eye quite a bit to do that, and the actual lasering was like looking directly at the sun intermittently for five minutes. It made my eyes ache. The ophthalmologist warned me that it would. The procedure is called laser retinopexy. The warning signs of a retinal tear are large floaters and flashes. If retinal tears are not treated they can lead to retinal detachment.

The floaters are getting smaller but they’re still super annoying and they flap about every time I move my eye. Which is all the time.

But thank goodness for public healthcare— pretty sure the procedures I had, the equipment needed to do them, the medical staff, and the fancy premises, were all very expensive. I’m sure I’ve paid for them through taxation but I’d much rather do that than pay at the point of delivery. It was brilliant that I was seen and treated so quickly. And thank goodness for science! And the wonderful, dedicated people who study science and medicine and use it to make other people better. Especially the amazing doctors of Gaza and Medécins sans Frontières.

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• Emerg or Emerge: Canadian slang for the emergency department of a hospital
• ER: American slang for the emergency department of a hospital
• A&E: British slang for the emergency department of a hospital

Just in case you ever need to know!