TSCPC - Uh, What?

(Source)

Sorry, I'm not ready to continue with my tale of the opening stages of World War II in Europe. The surgery I had Friday afternoon has left me weary and somewhat fuzzy-visioned. But not to worry, it gets better every day, well, except Sunday, Sunday was a really blurry day. With my "macular issues," as my eye doc is wont to call it, hey, it happens.

For years my left eye was the "go to" eye. When I needed glasses (around the age of twelve, thus dashing my dreams of being a fighter pilot), it was only the right eye which had issues, near-sighted it was. First pair of glasses was real lens in the right, plain glass in the left.

Now as the years went by, the left eye grew tired of doing all the heavy lifting (so I like to tell it) and gradually lost distance clarity to match the right. Which would then decide, "uh-uh, I ain't helping," and backslide just a bit more.

Well, this continued for some time, until one day the vitreous humor (that gelatinous-like substance which fills one's eyeball) began to shrink, it happens as we age. In the left eye, as this occurred, it pulled away from the retina but didn't "let go," much as a boat pulling away from the dock with a line still attached will either damage the boat or the dock.  Well, with the eye it seems the dock (the retina) always takes the fall.

It was bad enough in my left eye to require surgery which knocked that eye out of the lead as "best eye in my head." Now the right eye holds that distinction, even though that one had a vitreous humor "pull away" (as I call it) which left the right eye with what's called a "Weiss ring." (I'll let you look that up but it's something which can happen with a Posterior Vitreous Detachment, or PVD. Which is also the airport code for T.F. Green in Warwick, but everyone says Providence. Which ties in with the opening graphic, that eye on top of the pyramid on the dollar bill is "The Eye of Providence." As in God, not the city in Little Rhody, but the way my mind works, a connection, however tenuous, was made.)

Anyhoo, the right eye soldiers on rather well, but there are days when it gets really fatigued, and it's difficult to completely focus. That was Sunday, one of those days where I get to live the Patton line of "through a glass, but darkly." Or something to that effect, not really debilitating, just really, really annoying.

So yeah, that's the background on the Mark I, Mod 0 eyeballs in the Sarge's head. (Though in reality, the left eye is probably a Mark I, Mod 3 eyeball, three surgeries on that one, oh yeah, did I mention the cataract surgery on that side as well?)

So, what's with the long string of letters in the title, Sarge?

Okay, "TSCPC" stands for Transscleral cyclophotocoagulation, in my case this was performed with a diode laser using the G-Probe¹ glaucoma device. You saw the eyepatch the other day, right? Well, after it came off, I freaked out.

My left eye was no longer boresighted, off at an angle it was, strange and unfocused vision was the order of the day Friday night. But a good night's sleep fixed that right up. Both eyes are back in battery now, though the left is quite sore from the procedure.

Why the procedure, Sarge?

Well, long story short, glaucoma, both eyes. Left is the worst, so much so that the eye drops I've been using for months to control the intraocular pressure or IOP, were no longer as effective. So my eye doc sent me to an eye surgeon for a consult, he recommended this procedure (which does something to the ciliary glands to reduce the amount of liquid they produce, same volume to fill but with less liquid equals lower pressure) which was weird but short.

Long story short (again) I go back to the eye surgeon on Friday to check the pressure. If all goes well, the pressure will be well within optimal margins.

We shall see.

¹ This is really just a fiber-optic handpiece used to direct the energy of the laser, as I understand it. G-Probe is an IRIDEX brand name