Great News From the Retina Doctor: It’s Attached!

After everything my left eye has put me through over the past several months, today I finally got to hear two words I’ve been waiting for:

RETINA ATTACHED.

I went back to Retina Consultants of South Carolina earlier today for another follow-up, and that was the big news.

After the retinal detachment, surgery, silicone oil, silicone oil removal, the mysterious horizon, the bubble, the dot, the eclipse, and all the other visual special effects my eye decided to produce, my retina is attached.

I’ll take boring, attached, and functioning any day.

👁️ Not Completely Drama-Free

That doesn’t mean the eye has decided to behave perfectly.

I still have a little eye pain occasionally, and I’m seeing a few floaters. Considering what I’ve experienced recently, though, a couple of floaters feel considerably less exciting than having what looked like a solar eclipse floating around inside my eyeball.

And for once, less exciting is exactly what I want.

💉 And Then There Was the Question of a Shot...

Another issue being evaluated today: macular degeneration.

Given everything else that has happened with this eye, I wasn’t exactly looking to add another procedure to my medical résumé.

The good news?

I DON’T NEED A SHOT.

At least...

Currently.

That last word is doing some heavy lifting.

For now, there’s no injection. Instead, they’ll keep watching things, and I’ll be evaluated again in three weeks.

So I’m not declaring victory and running through the streets waving a flag just yet.

But today was unquestionably a good appointment.

Three Weeks Until the Next Chapter

Today’s eye scorecard:

Retina: ATTACHED! 🎉
Eye pain: Occasional.
Floaters: A few.
Macular degeneration: Being monitored.
Shot: Not needed currently. 💉🚫
Next evaluation: Three weeks.

After months of updates that included phrases like detached retina, silicone oil, surgery, bubble, horizon, eclipse and possible injections, I'll happily write an update where the biggest headline is:

MY RETINA IS ATTACHED.

Three weeks from now, we check again.

Until then, I’m going to enjoy some genuinely good news.

Sometimes progress isn’t dramatic. Sometimes progress is simply hearing your doctor say that something is exactly where it’s supposed to be.

And today, that’s more than enough.

The Eye Patch Came Off. That’s When the Fun Began. 👁️

Today, after dialysis, I headed back to the retina surgeon for the follow-up from yesterday’s silicone oil removal.

And the eye patch came off.

That’s where the fun began.

First, my eye looks like it got beat up in a bar fight. It’s bruised, irritated, and yes—it hurts.

But strangely, that isn’t the worst part.

Looking through that eye right now is like looking through a glass filled with cloudy liquid that is slowly trying to level out under gravity.

There’s a line. There’s cloudy stuff. It moves.

Basically, someone installed a snow globe in my eyeball and forgot to put the snow in.

Apparently, this is now part of the healing process.

I’ve also graduated to eye drops four times a day. One is an antibiotic, and the other is a steroid.

So if you see me next week and I’m green, 8 feet tall and screaming “HULK SMASH!”, we’ll know the steroid drops worked a little too well.

For the next week, I’ll continue the drops, keep an eye—literally—on the healing, and wear my eye guard at night so I don’t accidentally mess with it while sleeping.

Then it’s back to the retina surgeon in a week to see how everything is progressing.

Until then, I have dialysis, eye drops, an eye guard, and my own personal cloudy aquarium attached to my face.

Recovery continues.