An eventful Monday

I'm sure you all were wondering why I didn't post an update with my endoscopy results since I was supposed to be seeing that doctor for the follow-up visit on Monday June 19. As it happened, I didn't see the gastroenterologist that day because I needed to see my optometrist.

A couple of weeks ago, tree-like floaters suddenly appeared in my right eye. The tree structure collapsed and became much smaller over the course of the day and then disappeared. Since I had no other visual disturbances I figured that my eyes were ok. Then last Friday, a new (and rather annoying) floater that looked like a string curved into a partial circle appeared in my right eye. Later that evening I briefly saw some arcs of light in that eye when I moved my eyes around.

Since my vision was otherwise unaffected (there were no shadows, blurring, or decreasing vision in any way), there was only the one floater and not a bunch of them and it didn't block my vision (even if it was crazy annoying), and the arcs of light were connected to moving my eyes and they stopped, I didn't think I needed to go to an emergency room but would call my optometrist on Monday. Had any of those other things been going on  - or if any of them had started - I would have seen someone immediately because they're symptoms of retinal detachment.

I did call my optometrist's office on Monday morning and they squeezed me in to see the other optometrist in the office. I said I was supposed to go to another appointment and they told me that if I didn't go into their office that I needed to see my family doctor today and get a referral to an ophthalmologist today. I ended up rescheduling my gastroenterologist appointment for August 3 and going in to see the optometrist.

There, my pupils were dilated and my retinas examined. The big concern, and the reason they wanted me examined right away, was the possibility that my retina was detaching. Fortunately, that's not what is happening. Instead, I have posterior vitreous detachment, or PVD, which happens when the jelly-like fluid in the eye (the vitreous) detaches from the retina. It's normal and happens in older eyes. The big risk is that it could make the retina detach, too, so if I see a sudden increase in the number of floaters or any kind of shadow over my vision, I'm to see the optometrist or go to the emergency room immediately. Otherwise I'll see the optometrist in August for a follow-up.

Was I foolish to not head to the ER right away? Maybe. But I was fairly certain that I wasn't experiencing a retinal detachment as those symptoms are very well known and I didn't have them. I wouldn't have waited longer than a couple of days before seeing someone but I figured that waiting the extra days (in the absence of any new symptoms) would be all right.

And as it happens, I got the endoscopy results from my oncologist when I saw her on June 9. I didn't talk about those results as well because the gastroenterologist will need to interpret the results. Since I won't see him for another six weeks, I can tell you that the endoscopy showed....

Nothing. There's no ulcer. There's no damage. Te biopsies were normal. I am not gluten-intolerant. I do not have an H. pylori infection.

There's nothing wrong at all with my stomach. Why does it hurt sometimes? I have no idea. Maybe it's all in my head?