Regarding writing to him, I would need a copy of the scan I had done today. I always ask for these scans to be sent on via email. The optician said sheād do it on Monday, but it usually takes a load of phone calls over a two to three week period for them to eventually be sent on.
Patching the eye for an extended period of time is not an option.
As regards the last bit, Iāve fuck all to miss out on if this keeps up, and it will.
Sheād be a lot better off without me.
Iām not qualified to have this conversation, but youāll break her heart
She wouldnt mate. You can get through it. You have a lot to offer the world. Keep going.
I should say that that scan is considered to be good for somebody who has had a macula off retinal detachment. The retina is lying āflatā and there is no intra-retinal haemhorraging (called macular oedema) or sub-retinal fluid, both of which are relatively common for somebody in my position.
Macular oedema can look like this.
So on paper, it looks good, but itās like a football match, a team can look great on paper and still be shit, like PSG, and my retina is PSG in the Champions League.
@Cheasty - itās hard but you have to keep going.
Thereās too many gravestones of lads your age who just needed to keep going a day more. A day more.
Also lads your age who wanted to keep going but cancer or something else took.
What would @Faldo say to you if he had an hour with you tomorrow evening for a pint
I know. Itās just hard to keep going when you have very little hope, and you blame yourself for letting a situation which should have been harmless spiral into a catastrophe. Very hard.
Iād dearly love to be able to transfer my being alive to somebody else who desperately wanted to live, but sadly it doesnāt work like that.
Life is precious. Youād be dead for 20 mins before youād realise that being alive is much, much better.
On a lighter note, I didnāt have my glasses on down at the thermal spa place here at the Europe (cc @everyone) and almost walked into the womenās dressing room. Fuck me im blind without them
And that, your Honour, is my story and Iām sticking to it
A bad business
I had this scan done yesterday at the National Optometry Centre at TU Dublin in Grangegorman (Iād thoroughly recommend this place if you ever want to get a full eye exam, I paid 70 quid and got seen to for around an hour and a half which was well over my allotted time and the staff there are very helpful).
This is called an Optomap image. Itās basically a photograph of your retina, but takes in much more of the retina than a standard fundus photograph which youād have done at Specsavers or wherever. Not many places have Optomap machines.
That volcanic looking thing on the right is where my retina tore. The disintegrating vitreous humour ripped the retina as it separated from it as part of what is called a posterior vitreous detachment. Then liquid from the vitreous humour then burrowed in under the tear and burrowed as far as my macula, or more precisely my fovea, which controls the crisp central vision, and detached it, buggering the vision forever. The fovea is the dot in the middle of that light brown coloured portion in the centre of the photograph. That central portion of the retina is the vital area, it must be protected at all costs.
It looks to me like the fovea is now covered by an epiretinal membrane, a sort of scar tissue. This is causing mild swelling in that area, it may be contributing to distortion of vision, it may not.
The green line on the top of the scan here shows where the epiretinal membrane lies. As far as I can see here, itās like a web pulling on the top surface of the retina, and creating fine wrinkles on the surface. And it is also slowly making the foveal pit (the valley like area on a normal scan) disappear. Itās literally pulling the foveal pit up with it, so the valley disappears.
This for comparison is a scan taken on March 27th. The little purple circle demonstrates how thick the retina is at different points. On March 27th the retina was less thick than it is now ie. the central foveal thickness went from 309 microns on March 27th to 321 microns yesterday. That unfortunately is the wrong direction of travel. You want your retina to be going down in terms of thickness.
It looks like my binocular fusion capabilities are buggered because one eye produces a distorted image. Double vision forever, unless the brain learns to deal with things. That will be exceedingly difficult, as my visual acuity in the bad eye is 6/7.5, or 20/25, which means the brain will find it very difficult to suppress the image.
Would recommend Alensa.ie for anyone buying glasses providing you have the prescription.
Ordered on Sunday and arrived today from the Czech Republic 
ā¬46 delivered with DHL Express.
Can you test your own eyes and order then?
How would that work out?
All that wanking surely catches upā¦
Specsavers Wilton SC
Every few years I get my eyes checked
As weāve cancer in the family big time and my own kid had a growth that started behind the eye
They really give me a thorough examination
Few yrs ago this would not have happened
Dentists aswell are OTB now
Only seeing this now. (Pun intended)
Essentially youād be going into Specsavers and asking for an eye test but donāt buy glasses inside there.
You then ask for the prescription but they can be a bit awkward about it at times because they know what youāre up to. They have to give it to you after paying for the test.
The one measurement they wonāt give you is the pupil distance. Thereās apps you can get that will measure that using your phone.
Use the prescription to buy online then.
Iām having a small bit of trouble there lately looking at small printed excel sheets and then looking up at the PC screen. Iām finding the ātransitionā difficult.
As usual google is of no help. Iām wondering are those small half size glasses the answer?
What do you use @Fagan_ODowd?
Go into Lidl and get some 2.99 reading glasses
Start with a 1.5 if youāre not comfortable with the Lidl strategy of just tearing open the box to test the goods
