Floaters - Or So I Thought

So for about 2 or 3 years now, I've had this spot kind in my right eye, kind of to the left of center and slightly down from center, that I can't see through. This spot has been attributed to being a "floater". A piece of eye junk that breaks loose and can move around. Nothing to be worried about, and not really bothersome, just there. I quickly adjusted to it being there and can see fine.

So it came time for me to go to the optometrist a few weeks ago. While there, they do a new test that on me that's kind of like taking a cat scan of your eye and it shows up a spot that's abnormal in my right eye. He then refers me to a specialist that comes to town a couple of times a month from Dothan. I went and saw this guy on Monday.

He did the same cat scan test and got the same results. Then he did a field of vision test. Basically, you stick your head in a dome and close one eye and stare a central point with the other eye. Then they flash these little lights all around your field of vision. When you see a flash, you press a button on a little clicker. When you're done, the machine prints out a little picture of your eye and where any blind spots you have are.

The test showed up the blind spot in my right eye exactly where it really is. It also showed up a spot in the very top corner of my left eye next to my nose. The doctor said I've probably never noticed it because it's so far on the edge of my vision and in a place that people don't look very often.

So what all this boiled down to is this. He said that he usually sees these kinds of things in older patients that have had strokes. Since I first noticed the blind spot before I had my surgery, he think that I may have had a very minor stroke and not even known it and the only sign that it left behind was a couple of blind spots in my eyes. The good news is that since it was prior to my surgery, it's very unlikely to happen again, now that I have a good valve and I'm on blood thinner, but he wants to get an M.R.I. on my head just to be safe and to get a baseline in case something does ever happen again.

Crazy, huh? 2 heart surgeries, 4 heart caths and one stroke all before turning 27.

Oh, and two posts in two days. How do you like them apples?

--Paul