| How have your vision issues affected your life?: |
I have an extremely hard time driving at night because of blindness from lights, not being able to judge distance, a sort of fog comes over everything an makes it hard to see things. During the day I cannot read street signs so if I have to go somewhere someone has to go with me to be my eyes or I get lost. I need to have a lot of lighting to read. I need a magnifying glass with light to read small print. I cannot read small print on pill bottles or recipies or things in a store. I have double vision in my eyes but worse in one than the other. My corneas are flattened which is what happens with lasek surgery but what happened was they are flattened in the middle and somehow go up on the edge. I have negative in one eye and positive in the other. I have been fitted for hard gas contacts and they did not work. My lasek surgery--first one was ok but my vision was slowly getting worse so the doctor decided to do an enhancement and told me he could fix my problems--halos, ghosting, blurry vision. He did the enhancement, without a consent from me, used a drug not approved by FDA--mytomycin c--not sure of the spelling but I never authorized or knew about it. My eyes were overcorrected first time and worse the second time. |
| How have you learned to adapt to your vision issues?: |
How do you adapt to these problems? When my children were home they would help me or drive me now they are not and I have to fend for myself. i don't date, I make sure I am home or somewhere close to home when it gets dark. I have been through every option available to me. I have been told I cannot have any other laser surgery because I do not have enough cornea tissue. My only option is cornea surgery which I cannot afford. I wear glasses with a perscription worse than before the first surgery and they are bifocals. |
| What's been the hardest part of dealing with your vision issues?: |
Well, when I first had the surgery I could not drive my daughter places she wanted to go because I could not see at night. This made it so difficult because she wanted to go out with her friends and had no way of going. I have not dealt with it yet and do not know how to. I have seen many doctors. It is frustrating and no one can understand when you tell them when I look out my eyes I do not see the same things out of both of my eyes like normal people do. People just don't understand. |
| What was your first reaction to your vision issues?: |
I went from being angry because I was not getting answers, then I was hurt because I could not believe someone would do this to me. Then I went back to mad and scared because I do not know what the future holds for me. I have gone to college got my BA in criminal justice and still studying for my masters but will I have good enough vision to get my choice job? |
| What's the #1 thing docs should know about people with your vision issue?: |
I am not an invalid or a shut in and I have not let it stop me from doing things like helping with non profit organizations. I have to do some things slower like reading a book or the newspaper. I am a normal person with very bad vision. I try to tell people just because Ihad bad laser surgery does not mean you will and if they are thinking about having laser eye surgery I just tell them make sure they ask a million questions and feel very comfortable. Of course there is no guarantee at least that's what my doctor said. I was told I would have 20/20 vision after the first procedure. When that did not happen I was told my vision would definetly be corrected after the enhancement and I ended up worse. |
