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.

Recovery Update: The Scabs Are Leaving, the Scar Is Staying

Healing apparently has stages.

First, everything looks terrible.

Then it somehow looks even worse.

Then one day I look at it and realize, “Wait… that actually looks a lot better.”

That’s where I seem to be today.

👁️ The Eye: Boring Is Still Beautiful

My eye continues to look better. There’s still some redness, but compared with where this adventure started after the silicone oil removal, I'll take it.

More importantly, the visual effects are still gone.

No dot. No bubble. No floaters. No horizon. No eclipse.

I never thought I’d be this excited about seeing absolutely nothing unusual.

I'm continuing the drops and watching the eye, but boredom remains my favorite development.

💪 The Scraped Arm: Crust City Is Being Demolished

Now for the arm.

Look at the difference.

Most of that giant, nasty scab that has been starring in these updates is finally gone. What’s underneath is pink, fresh-looking skin with one stubborn darker area hanging around.

And I think we can officially call this one:

I'm going to have a scar.

Considering what this thing looked like immediately after the fall—and then during its glorious Crust City phase—a scar seems like a pretty reasonable souvenir.

I suppose I could make up an impressive story about how I got it.

Shark attack?

Bar fight in Singapore?

Saving a family from a burning building?

Nope.

I fell.

Sometimes reality just doesn't cooperate with the legend.

🩸 The Fistula Arm: Where Did the Stitch Go?

Meanwhile, the fistulagram site keeps healing, too.

The dissolvable stitch appears to be doing exactly what the name advertised. The area is still visible and there’s some discoloration, but it looks considerably less dramatic.

Still waiting on that Hello Kitty Band-Aid upgrade. 🎀

I haven't forgotten.

Three Different Parts. Same Direction.

So today's recovery report is considerably less disgusting than some of the previous editions:

Eye: less red, no dots or floaters.
Scraped arm: most of the scab is gone, new skin is showing—and yes, there will be a scar.
Fistula arm: healing nicely after fistulagram #4.

The scar on my arm will probably stick around long after I've stopped writing these daily updates.

That's okay.

Scars are just receipts proving my body paid the bill and kept going.

And this particular receipt comes with a very simple description:

Fell down. Got back up.

Recovery Update: Three Body Parts, Three Different Definitions of “Healing”

Another day, another round of “What exactly is my body doing now?”

The good news is that all three things I’ve been watching seem to be moving in the right direction. They just apparently have very different ideas about what the healing process should look like.

👁️ The Eye: Still Red, But No More Special Effects

The eye is still noticeably red and looks irritated, but the biggest news remains the best news: no dot. No bubble. No floaters. No eclipse. No horizon.

After everything I was seeing following the silicone oil removal, I’m perfectly happy with boring vision.

I’m continuing the eye drops and keeping an eye on the eye — yes, I said it.

💪 The Scraped Arm: Welcome to Crust City

The arm continues its transformation from open road rash into what looks like an archaeological excavation.

It is DRY. It is CRUSTY. It is SCABBED.

There’s also that whitish, flaky skin around the edges as everything dries out. At this point, I’m basically waiting for the scabs to decide they’ve overstayed their welcome and fall off on their own.

It may actually look more disgusting now than it did when it happened.

But underneath all that crustiness, it seems to be healing.

Do. Not. Pick. The. Scab.

I’m saying that mostly to myself.

🩸 And Then There's the Fistula Arm...

My fourth fistulagram was yesterday, and today the access site looks remarkably uneventful.

The little incision is there. There’s some bruising and discoloration around it, but compared with everything else going on with my body, this one is almost disappointingly boring.

The dissolvable stitch is doing its thing.

Still no Hello Kitty Band-Aid. 🎀

Apparently vascular surgery has excellent balloons but a terrible selection of designer wound care.

So today's scorecard:

Eye: still red, but the visual special effects are gone.
Scraped arm: crustier than ever, but healing.
Fistula arm: bruised, sore, stitched, and recovering.

None of it looks particularly glamorous.

But I'll take ugly and healing over pretty and getting worse any day.

Recovery Update: THE DOT IS GONE! 👁️🎉

Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting this update when I woke up this morning.

I got up to head to dialysis, did my usual check of the left eye, and went looking for my little unwanted passenger — the mysterious “air bubble” that has been hanging around in my vision.

And it was SUPER, SUPER SMALL.

We’ve gone from something noticeable at the bottom of my vision, to roughly the size of a 1-cent euro coin yesterday, to something this morning that looked almost like a pinhole.

It was so tiny that it looked different, too.

Before, the dot had been translucent. I could sort of see through it. This morning, it was so small that it just looked dark.

And it was moving around a little.

There were also a few other floaters joining the party, because apparently my left eye needed one final going-away celebration.

Then I got to dialysis.

I looked for the dot again.

Nothing.

Looked around.

Nothing.

Moved my eye.

NOTHING.

THE DOT IS GONE!

GONE! 👁️🎉

After days of calling it a horizon indicator, vinaigrette, an eclipse, a euro coin, and whatever else I could come up with, the mysterious dot that my doctor thought might be an air bubble appears to have finally disappeared from my vision.

I am certainly not declaring the entire eye adventure finished. I still have healing to do, and after everything this eye has put me through, I'm not tempting fate by announcing that Left Eye Airlines has permanently landed.

But today?

I'll take the win.

Now, about that arm...

Yeah.

While the eye seems to have decided it wanted some positive attention today, my arm apparently looked at the assignment and said:

“Don't worry. I'll keep things disgusting.”

It is crusty.

It is dark.

It looks nasty.

And judging by the picture, it may actually be getting more impressive in the grossness department while it heals.

So today's scoreboard:

👁️ Eye: DOT GONE!
🫧 Bubble: Apparently departed.
👀 Floaters: Still making occasional appearances.
💪 Arm: Crusty as hell.
🩹 Recovery: Still moving forward.

There have been a lot of strange developments during this recovery, but watching that dot get smaller day after day and then finally disappear is one update I've been waiting to write.

Sometimes progress happens slowly.

And sometimes I get to dialysis and realize...

THE DOT IS GONE!

Recovery Update: The Bubble, the Blood Vessels & the Crusty Arm

Today was my one-week follow-up after having the silicone oil removed from my left eye, and apparently my recovery story needed another plot twist.

First, the easy update.

My arm is getting crustier.

That sounds disgusting because, frankly, it looks disgusting. The road rash from my disagreement with my prosthetic, gravity, and the carpet is continuing to scab over. It may technically be healing, but aesthetically, we're still several miles away from a Neutrogena commercial.

Now, back to the eye.

For the past several days, I've been talking about the horizon, the vinaigrette, the eclipse and, most recently, this translucent dot or bubble floating around in my vision.

Naturally, that was one of the things I wanted to ask about at today's appointment.

The Good News

The doctor looked at my eye and didn't see the translucent dot I'm seeing.

Okay. That's encouraging.

Apparently, whatever I'm seeing isn't something obvious sitting there waving at him from inside my eyeball.

The Bad News

He said what I'm seeing might be an air bubble.

So after spending the last week describing my eye as an airplane cockpit, apparently there might literally be air involved.

You can't make this stuff up.

The horizon has been shrinking. The vinaigrette has been disappearing. The eclipse came and went.

Now I've potentially got my own tiny bubble level.

👁️🫧

And Then Came the REALLY Bad News

This was the part of the appointment I wasn't particularly excited to hear.

The doctor is concerned enough about the blood vessels in the back of my eye that I may need injections into the eye to help prevent further bleeding or problems with those vessels.

Yes.

Shots. In. My. Eye.

I've dealt with an amputation.

I've dealt with dialysis.

I've had retinal surgery.

I've had silicone oil put into my eye.

I've had silicone oil removed from my eye.

And somehow the phrase "injection into your eye" still manages to get my attention.

I'm not saying that's definitely happening yet. That's the possibility we're now discussing, and we'll see where things go from here.

For now, I'm continuing the recovery process and paying very close attention to what I can—and can't—see.

The good news is that I'm seeing better than I was immediately after surgery.

The weird translucent bubble is still hanging around.

The arm continues to transform into one giant, crusty scab.

And apparently my left eye has decided that one surgery wasn't enough material for this blog.

Stay tuned.

At this rate, my eye may develop Wi-Fi tomorrow.