I sat down to a taco salad last night. Then I jumped and looked behind me because there was a giant shadow of a snake on the floor. Unfortunately the snake jumped, too. And started to dissipate. And was only in one eye. "What does it mean when your eye fills with blood?" I asked my wife. "I don't know," she said, "let's call the consulting nurse line." Which came back with "yep, that's an ER visit, which one are you going to" which we answered with "well that depends, which one is in network" which they responded with "let me connect you with someone who can answer that" and that person responded with "bitch, this is the dispatch line, do you need a cabulance" because this is America. If you're going to go to the ER in America I recommend Tuesday night, ideally in an up-and-coming commuter neighborhood at some remove from downtown. I was triaged before I could take a seat, had blood drawn within ten minutes, had an ultrasound and a CT scan within an hour and a prognosis within two: not a stroke, not a brain hemorrhage, not a detached retina, visit this ophthalmologist ASAP because.... maybe multiple sclerosis? During the entire 2 1/2 hr adventure my eye filled with Dementors three more times. The 9am call to the ophthalmologist landed us a 10am appointment which landed us a 10:30 diagnosis of retinal tear ("they always under-diagnose retinal stuff") and a 10:35 optical surgery. Unfortunately I'd had another geyser while I was sleeping and it clotted so I have a persistent black jellyfish in one eye. My vision is also yellower. I've been told this will dissipate. The guy who told me was Obama's ophthalmologist so he has my trust. I will follow up in a week. I bring this up because apparently lots of people go "huh, my vision is full of blood, I'm sure that will pass" which means your retina detaches and you aren't looking at two minutes with a surprise laser you're looking at an operating room and a week of lying on your face recovering. So don't sleep on eye shit. 'cuz i guess as you become an old fart your eye jelly cuts loose and starts rolling around and most people never notice but for a lucky few it rips your retina on the way out and that shit won't necessarily heal itself.
glad y’all took that seriously and hope you have a quick recovery with minimal lasting consequences. that sounds scary in the moment and i don’t know how the majority of people who don’t live in a city with a major, major healthcare network like we do manage these things. id imagine they don’t.
Yeah, that thought occurred to me in the waiting room of the ER. "Man, I sure am glad I'm not on a sailboat pointed at Vanuatu right now." I had to wait two hours for an ultrasound tech to drive up from Albuquerque when I was a kid. And while a fresh medical student at the University of Washington diagnosed the eczema in my fingernails before I'd sat down, three years previously I'd been made to sit as an exhibit while every third dermatologist in the Mountain West wandered through, asked me to hold up my hands, stroked their chins and left. The consensus was leprosy, until they learned that I'd been cultured for leprosy and it came back negative.