Lasers are Amazing!!!

[chimp3]

Monday night I awoke from my sleep with a bright flash in my field of vision. I began having a regular parade of flashing orbs in my left eye's field of vision. Right lower quadrant near my nose. Freaking out, spent the early morning hours reading about detached retinas and all kinds of optical emergencies. So, Tuesday I got an appointment with the optometrist. (The nearest Opthamologist is 80 miles away and only available certain days.) The Optometrist dilated both my eyes and found that my retina in left eye was detaching. Age related problem caused by vitriol matter pulling on the retina (vitriol-tug).
Now I am really freaking out. My left eye is very dear to me since I am legally blind in my right.  20/400 vision which requires a coke bottle lens or a #4.0 contact lens to correct. I have 20/20 on the left.
So, on Wednesday I have an 8am appt. with a Retinologist. They dilate both my eyes and do a computerized scan of both my retinas. Very cool. This creates a 3-D image of the retina which can be turned and seen from many angles. This also verifies that the top left edge of my retina was bulging upward due to bleeding building up from underneath. The edge of the bulge was already detached. The Retinologist assured me that this injury would not result in total blindness but a loss of inner peripheral vision near my nose. Still, I need that.
We then went to the another room, the Laser room. My left eye was numbed. I was asked to place my face in this frame. An instrument that looked like a jewelers lens was place against my eyeball. The Retinologist stood in front of me with this machine and an incredibly bright light shining directly through the lens right into my retina. Very disconcerting. He told his assistant to turn the laser on and began zapping the torn area with pulses of laser shots.
Now, he should have at least warned me of the bizarre and amazing light show that would bombard my brain. Wow! What an incredible light show. It took a lot not to jerk and pull away. The purpose of the laser was to create a "buckling" of my retina reinforcing it from the tugging and fixing it back to the posterior eye.  Done. No real pain except soreness when the numbing agent wore off. All the pain was on the external eye ball from the pressure of the instrument. The dilation causes extreme photosensitivity and I had a headache. Came home , took 2 Ibuprofen and a 2 hour nap. I am good as new.
So, science is amazing! I feel religiously grateful today so I would like to thank Isaac Newton for his work in Optics. I would also like to thank Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow for their theoretical work on Lasers. Also, the medical doctors who specialize on the eye. Ramen!

You didn't thank ABBA? Geeze it astounds me that they are not the center of the universe. 

Oh and BTW , good for you. Science is great.

I might be whining about vision loss but ABBA is one reason I am grateful for hearing loss. Let me end it all with some Jello Biafra and 1992 Soundgarden turned up to 11.

[Aegon]

Your topic title gave me TWO acid flashbacks. Thanks.

[chimp3]

Your topic title gave me TWO acid flashbacks. Thanks.

I consumed quite a bit of acid in the 70's. That did not prepare me for having lasers fired directly into my brain!