Any one living in the East of England might remember that last Thursdays weather was crap. We had freezing rain and high winds, stay indoors under a duvet weather, but I dutifully brought two return tickets, peak time, into London on Wednesday morning. I popped them in my purse all nice and safe. My appointment at Moorfields was at 9am (and I promise you now, if they ever give me a appointment at that time again, they can feck right off!) In my wisdom, because I am very astute and aware of how unpredictable our public transport is, I opted to get the train before the one I actually needed to get. So, my partner and I fought our way to the stain station at 7am in the wind and rain to catch the 7.15am train into London. I took the train tickets out of my purse put my way out journey ticket in my coat pocket and gave my other half his, and then put the return tickets back in my purse.
On the platform the rain was cold and the wind howled around us and I began to wonder why the hell I thought wearing a skirt was a good idea. I shoved my hands deeper into my coat pocket and did the stamping my feet thing that every single commuter on the packed platform was doing, then my nose felt drippy so I felt around in the pockets...nope, nothing in my pockets.....OH FUCK, THERE IS NOTHING IN MY POCKETS... total panic, I had lost my ticket, the other half doesn't panic and says..never mind we will just buy another....so off we go and squeeze into the packed ticket office to buy another ticket. I fought my way forward and explained to the lady ticket seller that I needed to buy another ticket because mine had blown away, she laughed and said she remembered me buying it yesterday, so she just printed me off another one. PHEW, ticket problem sorted and we made our way back up the platform to our spot! Only for an announcement to come on the loud speaker to say our train had been cancelled and the next one will be delayed. Dismay, I cant tell you how panicked I felt, a whole load of people left the platform, jumping into their cars and driving to the next station where there are more trains in to London due to the Cambridge and Peterborough lines meeting there. So what do we do? Do the same? Stay put and hope the train isn't cancelled? or Drive to London? The third option wasn't really an option as driving into London and then finding parking would be ridiculous, if we drive to the next station, we still have to find some where to park the car, so we opted to wait, we decided to walk off the platform and stand under the bridge for a bit of shelter, and there, in the middle of the road, being tossed along in the wind, was my lost ticket! Bloody thing!
The train rumbled in 20 mins late and had been reduced from twelve carriages to eight, you can imagine the carnage...there was no way all the people on the platform were going to fit on the already packed train, however I HAD to get on this train, there was already no way I was going to make the 9am appointment, so I do what I do best and started barking orders at people to move there fat arses down the train cos I was getting on even if it meant crowd surfing. Once we were on we spent the next forty minutes uncomfortably close to other humans, and our next train to Old Street was just as packed. How people working in London do this every day I will never know, I really hope they are paid well, cos there isn't any amount of money that would get me rubbing noses and other body parts with strangers every morning. We moved quickly with the flow of people towards the underground exit and onto the street, and luckily we were able to get to the hospital without much delay. I was twenty minutes late for my appointment but it didn't seem to be a problem for them, luckily. My heart was still racing as I was called in for a eye sight test and to have my eyes dilated, and the nurse made me sit quietly for a few minutes to calm down. The sight test was crap, but I already knew that there had been a big change. I was sat back out in the corridor to wait for scans, I was only sitting there about ten minutes before I was called in, fifteen minutes later I was sitting back in the corridor waiting for the consultant to call me in.
This is where things get really confusing, I was called in to see a junior consultant, who was lovely, but said the new scans do not show a hole, overwhelming relief warmed my entire soul (quite literally, I was so pleased) he said that he was sure I had been misdiagnosed BUT the scan did show that the jelly which is attached to the retina has detached itself and is now settled away from the retina, this is also good newsish, as the jelly is no longer pulling on the retina which means a tear or retinal detachment is less likely although the scan did show an accumulation of fluid which isn't so good. The reason I cannot see is because I have a very small patch of blur in my central vision (which has a name but I cant remember, spell or pronounce it) accompanied by this massive black floater which has also fixed its self right in my central vision. My consultant, the man at the top, was wondering around checking all his juniors were ok when he noticed me, after ejecting the poor junior from his seat, my consultant checks my scans and then my eyes, sits back and stares at me for a moment. He then went into much explanation and detail about how the floater might move on its own, he couldn't say when, and he couldn't promise that it would ever move or that once it had moved that it wouldn't move back. when I explained that it was having a big impact on my quality of life, as in I can't be at work, I can't go shopping on my own, i can read or write etc, he talked about operating to remove the floater, or rather he talked about removing a floater from someone's eyes whose sight wasn't as bad as mine, and then he talked about operating on me. His actual words were...The odds of us operating and us not making your sight worse, are fucking shit! 1 in 500. You know I am going to be that 1 person out of 500 that gets an infection, or the op causes a retinal split, Then there will be no way of regaining the sight I have now.
If you said to me the odds of me winning the lottery are 1 in 500 I wouldn't stand a chance of winning, and it wouldn't change my life. But, 1 in 500 chance that the operation will cause my sight to be worse WILL make a difference to my life isn't a sensible gamble worth taking.
My consultant felt the best thing to do is to leave it well alone, give it three months to see if it moves on its own, he then decided that he would like me to see the top surgeon guy there and then and went off to see if this man was willing to see me at such short notice and with out an appointment. Lucky for me he was and I was marched off across the hospital to meet the surgeon, he also looked at my scans and then into my eyes and concluded the same as my consultant. The operation to remove the floater is a very easy one, however its just too risky to perform this kind of surgery on me, he agreed that it might move on its own and that after a three month period I should return and go over options. In the mean time, go home, take it easy and go to see my GP. I feel lost, I don't feel like I am any further forward, in fact, a hole would have been easier to cope with, if there was a hole I would know what the expectations are and I would be able to prepare for the future. As it is, I cant prepare for any thing, its a waiting game for something that might never happen. Another factor is that my brain might adjust and I learn to cope with it, maybe even sort of see past it. I just don't know, time will tell. The return journey from the hospital went without a hitch, in fact I think from leaving my house in the morning to arriving at the hospital took longer than the whole time I was at the hospital and my journey home! I spent a lot of Friday feeling a mixture of sadness, frustration and anger, anger because I was told there was a hole, I had spent the last three months grieving for something I didn't have, but my CBT sprang back into my head, and I realise there is nothing I can do about that, the fact is, there is no hole, and that is a very good fact so what's the point in getting all crabby over something that is in the past. Put it to bed Lynda, its done, focus on the positive and don't let the negative take control.
So, here we are a week later, the floater hasn't moved yet. At the weekend we decided to drag out the Christmas tree, It was noticeably hard for me to decorate the tree, I got very upset when I couldn't see where the fairy lights needed to be and ended up switching them on so I could get them on the tree, then I got into a massive tangle. In the end I sat on the sofa and watched the girls do something I used to love doing. Its taken a few days to get it looking how we like the tree to look but its done.
We also thought we would open a tub of quality street while we decorated, when we started to tidy up the lid of the tub was no where to be found......
Too dam cheeky x
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