Jeepers Creepers, Where’d Ya Get those Peepers?

This is gonna be a long one. You might want to get yourself a snack.

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When I was nineteen, I wanted contact lenses. The optometrist I’d been going to since I got my first pair of glasses in 5^th grade wouldn’t prescribe them. He told me he never prescribes contacts for teens. Ever. Said they’re fine for adults, but not for someone who wasn’t done growing. He assured me he’d happily fulfill my request in a few years. “Patience,” he said, grinning his familiar grin at me. “Trust me on this.”

I did trust him. He’d kept my peepers in good working order since that first pair of specs. I’d chosen octagon shaped frames on that visit and yes, they were every bit as dorky as they sound. I loved them. In my 5th grade school photo, I’m wearing those glasses and a red velvet jacket (it was actually a red velvet pantsuit, but the pic is head and shoulders, so unfortunately you don’t get treated to the whole groovy vibe). I’d yet to understand how to make the most of my mop of curls, so the whole look was, well, let’s just say I’m not sharing that pic on this post.

Trust him or not, I went straight from his office to the mall where, within a few hours, I’d gotten my eyes examined at a popular chain place and walked away with a scrip for contacts. I loved the freedom of wearing contact lenses, but after about a year, I started experiencing problems. I went back to my longtime doc, who checked my eyes and recommended going back to glasses for a while to give my eyes a break. I did as he asked, but the problems continued. On a return visit, he assured me that everything was okay and said it can sometimes take a bit of time to adjust back to glasses. I returned again (and again) when things didn’t get better. He repeatedly assured me that my eyes were healthy and eased my worries about the odd lines I’d see whenever I closed my eyes.

I got married, had a baby, and then had two more. We’d moved to Wisconsin to be closer to my husband’s parents, so I scheduled visits with a new doctor, dentist, and eye doctor as part of getting us established in our new location. At my eye appointment, I filled out the new-patient questionnaire and waited for my name to be called. The doctor introduced himself, took a quick look into each of my eyes with his ophthalmoscope, then set the instrument down and asked, “Where is your husband? Can he meet us here?”

I told him my husband was at work—was at his first day of work at a new job—and I wasn’t going to call him there. A little frightened, I asked what was going on. He quietly said first day or not, I needed to call him. He wouldn’t say more.

Things moved very quickly once my husband arrived. The doc took a book from his shelf, flipped to find the page he was looking for, and turned it so we could take a look. The picture was of the inside of an eye, and this eye had lots of squiggly lines that went in toward the pupil. These lines looked exactly like the ones I’d been seeing whenever I closed my eyes, and exactly how I’d described them to my previous doc at multiple visits.

The doctor was somber as he delivered the news. I was terrified. He said my eyes were presenting as literally a textbook case, and that any first-year student should have been able to recognize what was happening. He said he’d been all but certain after reading my new-patient info and had looked into my eyes praying he was wrong.

He said I needed to see a specialist immediately. He called and got me an appointment with a doctor who was considered the best in the state. It usually took eight or nine months to get in to see him, but after hearing what my new doc said, he made time to see me that day.

The specialist wasn’t somber. He was angry. He confirmed the diagnosis from a few hours earlier, also mentioned that a student would have recognized my specific symptoms and that nothing more than a quick glace would bring certainty. He said I’d been prescribed improperly fitted contact lenses and because of that, my eyes had been significantly deprived of oxygen. When that happens, he explained, blood vessels in the eyes draw in closer to the pupils in a frantic and desperate search for oxygen. If they reach the pupil, blindness occurs. He estimated that one of my eyes would have reached that point in no more than three months, the other by four.

He offered a course of treatment that included steroids but cautioned that it may be too late. I was dangerously close to or past the tipping point. He spoke of blindness and possible corneal transplants. I thought of my children. Our oldest wasn’t yet two and our twins were 4 ½ months old.

The next months had me on a roller coaster of fear. I studied my children’s faces, trying to memorize every eyelash and curve. I was acutely aware, every waking minute, that my vision could go, likely without warning. The specialist had cautioned me to be very careful not to get poked or bumped in an eye, because they were too delicate to withstand even the slightest injury. He also told me to sue. “I’ve never before said what I’m about to say to you. I have never once in my career told a person to file suit against another doctor because doctors are human, and humans make mistakes. This though, isn’t the result of a mistake. It’s gross negligence and ineptitude the likes of which I have never seen.”

He stopped, took a notably long breath, teared up, put his hands atop mine, and continued. “You are a young woman. You have three babies. Even if this treatment works, I can’t guarantee that if you take a blow to an eye, even years from now, it won’t cost you your vision. A child’s ball that bumps your face, anything. And in any case, your vision will never be the same. You’ll deal with things like light sensitivity, which doesn’t sound like much, but it can be extreme. File suit against the company and doctor who prescribed you those lenses, and file against that,” he paused, took another long breath, and finished his sentence, “poor excuse for a doctor who failed you in such an egregious way. I will go to court and testify. Please do this. He cannot be allowed to keep practicing. And while I know this is hard to hear, you might need extra funds to manage what lies ahead for you.”

I sat there, stunned. I did contact a lawyer—someone we knew through someone else we knew—and he agreed to take the case. Some time down the line he informed me that he would no longer pursue the case and offered almost nothing in the way of a reason why. My husband and I believed, and still do, that we know the reason the case was abruptly dropped. We have no proof of our suspicion, so I will not reveal the names of any of the involved parties, but I will say that the lawyer put a rather impressive addition on his already impressive house not long after. The doctor I’d gone to since childhood closed his practice and retired after he got the news of what happened to me. He was a kind, good man, and I feel certain he felt terrible. He has since passed, but I have always wished him well, though I never reached out to tell him so. I hope he was able to make peace with what happened.

The treatment worked. I have been and remain ever grateful for the doctor who recognized what was happening and the specialist who took it from there. Those men saved my vision. Without them, nothing in my life would be as it is. Nothing.

In those early months after the diagnosis, I was in an almost constant state of heightened anxiety. During that stretch, my body developed a quick-trigger anxiety response that has stuck with me like a crappy houseguest who refuses to leave. I’ve learned to keep it locked in its room most of the time, but the nasty little bugger busts out at the most inopportune times. There have been stretches when the anxiety was fully crippling. Mostly it’s just there, lurking, waiting to pounce.

And the specialist was correct about the long-term visual ramifications. My eyes are extremely light sensitive—some days more so than others. If allergens or a cold or anything else is added to the mix, they’re that much worse. I see well in low and medium light, but not when it’s bright. Stores with fluorescent lighting are impossible, as are bright sunny days. It can be disorienting—the almost whiteout that happens when I’m in a too bright place. And patterned flooring is highly problematic, as well. Strange and wonky. At an eye exam some years back with a doctor I hadn’t visited before, she finished the exam and said, “Wow. Daytime is not your friend, is it? But night? You love the night.” Every doctor I’ve seen since my early twenties has been fascinated by what they see when they examine my eyes, but she was the only one to articulate exactly how that manifests in my life.

Getting contacts or not getting them. Little decisions like that are made every day.  Such a small thing, except when it’s not.

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GBE Topic #20: “What one small thing could have changed your life forever?”

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