UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Hey, not saying I'm illiterate or that I got my Adult Learning cert here ... but, wow, this just happened ...

For the last 2 hrs I was watching a movie, in a dimlit room with my shades on for the glare the light etc ya know drill... since last nite I had decided to stop taking the Mydrilate drops (supposed to stop them on Tuesday), my pupil was the size of a fist... and I thought ok, enough! I can't take this weird ass look anymore - vague images of Marilyn Manson and 'MadEye' Moody with the big eye scary big pupil thing... seriously thou my eye was beginning to be super hyper sensitive to light! So I had to trade my 'light shades' for the real dark ones so I could cope with looking at the TV screen.
Anyway, all day I could 'feel it' the pupil relaxing and becoming normal again but still real twitchy about strong light - by the way I'm still taking my other drops - anyway the movies over - TV off and I turn to my PC.
Now, remember its 1:30am, so any normal sane persons are all sleeping - so while respecting that I'm kinda trying not to be noisey get ready for bed off with the shades and out with my right lens.
Then I realised, hang on here a second, I can see stuff. Oh My F&%King GoD w0ot !

This is a moment, like, when you do something amazing, a trick or something really cool like save a cat that fell out of a tree and damn it no one is there to see you do it and praise you and stuff. Well, at home, everyone is sleeping so I am bubbling away with elation. I can see and I can see very good. I am here having this very amazing silent jump for joy feeling stunned shocked outa my socks, palpitations fit - I can read STUFF with my left eye - and I have NO ONE around to tell it to, share it like they do in Friends meh even the few I chat with on MSN from time to time are offline !!! Oh God does that mean I'm a geek!?

Yes my fellow KCers I can see like the best of us! The overall eyesight is a bit cloudy, but its clean and also nearly really sharp and wow! I can make out the forum header TEXT very easily from the other side of the room ... this is amazing - things are still slightly unfocused but damn - the fog has gone, no glare, even better, my new eye it sees better than my right with the lens in!

I know it's early days, just two weeks after the graft, at first I was impressed the change, even then at a push I'd have accepted as the end result as it was much better than how I could see before even with a Scleral Lens. Now this! My pupil back working normal with those pupil dilation drops out of my system nearly 2 days and it is staggering!

I have tested this already, I went to make myself a coffee and before some smarty pants points out, but its now after 2am bed? - yes I know, not a chance of any sleep tonight I can SEE ... w00t w00t w00t ... but I made coffee, walked down the stairs, walked back up them all with my 'good' eye covered - I can now see that well!

OK I know I could have told this news a normal regular way - but I'm happy I might have some pain in the morning with eyestrain as I can actually feel the little eye muscles doing their job now.

So I will leave it there, and report more tomorrow.

Heu, that's really excellent news. Just such a shame that you couldn't share it with anyone who was awake

Still, you managed to share it with all of us, and many of us really appreciate the wonderful event.

Let's just hope that things now go on from strength to tstrength.

Knight

Thats great news i am really pleased for you.
Hope you have a great day showing off your new talent.

Anne

Nice news Knight...really nice news!

There's hope for us all!

Excellent news!

While we are all congratulating Knight on his good news, he is probably in bed now

GarethB wrote:While we are all congratulating Knight on his good news, he is probably in bed now

hah ... no I'm not My eyesight is still great thou

I never went to bed, gave up trying to sleep. I actually do suffer from sevre palpitations, so far my little heart monitor shows my heartrate at 110-127ish, stress bleh ... but thank you everyone for the replies. I have demonstrated my new found eyeball today to some family and a friend, you'd think I found something extraordinary

Knight

I think I was asleep when you had your epiphany! Well done.

Andrew

Welcome or not, heh, since stopping the Mydrilate I've nearly felt overwhelmed with my eyesight. Both literally and figuratively. It's actually tiring me out my brain feels like its processing into hyper drive the new way it can see through the grafted eye, and, when compared to how bad my eyesight was I will not beat about the bush, or feel any shame in admitting, I've nearly succumbed to tears.
For me, personally, this has been a tough journey - and it's not over yet - I wont depress you all with a 'hard luck' story, we all have our own, but this one thing means a great deal to me and I'll be brief to make my point - this sudden eye operation is a sharp stark awakening to how bad things were regarding my eyesight which I simply dealt with and coped with without really thinking about it. KC started off in my left eye when I was 16 (I had to look in my records to be sure how far back this all went) I'm 30 now, nearly 15 years on and the last 6 have been the worst, in every way imaginable, crisis points, hardships, both personally and within families, even death, suicides and breakdowns, you name it chances are it has happened to me within my sphere of life - not complaining and have never asked sympathy - I just put my head down and made the best I could and try to help where I can, but this 'new eye' has changed something, obviously, in me and within my life already!
You better believe I am emotional about it, firm about it too. I can see, and I can see very well. For me, this is some small reward, a little footnote and mention, that its not all bad. We all know the impact KC has in it's advanced stage and I was there in the extremes of that - now I'm not anymore. I am not trying to make a mission statement here or turn this into a philosophical conniption, but this has changed me, rolled back the years even to the days when I didn't need to wear a contact lens to see properly, even saying that sounds weird - but I was struggling just didn't realise it until now.
So I can't avoid the comparisons, even the small little occurrence of being able to move my eye without the fear of a lens catching my eyelid, falling out or clamping to the sclera are all reminders, still, that maybe now things are on the up for me. I'm only two weeks post op so the memory of how it 'all looked' once is still raw and obvious - my brain is constantly comparing how it was to how it is now. I don't consider myself lucky, having KC doesn't make you lucky, but equally I wasn't entirely debilitated and unfortunate either despite life and all that monkey-business. As they say, shit happens, they are very smart people!
No matter how bad I had it, there's always some one else worse off, even though that may be irritating to say (or hear) at times, it is true, but - I still can't help feel this turning point in my life as one small, but impacting, turnaround - which I don't think I need to apologise for just trying to tell a happy story rather than a sad one for a change!
I'll have more informative feedback this Thursday but judging from this side of the fence although blurred still things are no where near as fogged once the Mydrilate wore off completely. I can report and detect no distortions in my field of view and I can make out most objects and my surroundings like normal, can count fingers with some ease up to about 20 feet away now, text is a little more difficult because the vision is still blurred - its more to do with I can make out the 'shape' of the word than really read it. Big bold letters I can see and sitting at around 5 feet away from a 32in widescreen TV I can watch a movie, follow it and understand it via my left (grafted) eye alone. As I said compared to how bad my eyesight was, my vision, how this makes me feel is none short of life altering!
I'm still fairly sensitive to the light but I'm trying not to wear my sunglasses at home all the time because I don't want to develop some odd dependence and at the same time build my tolerance up in a way to light and conditions. But, often I still rest my eyes, they seem to get tired fast, and especially the left, get dry so I even look forward to taking my drops at times. As for the stitches, I don't feel those as much although there is a little bit of irritation on the sides of my eye still - regarding the stitches I can't really see them myself looking in a regular mirror, and under most conditions people can't see them either. I need a flashlight and magnifying glass to count them via a mirror and now, for some reason, its near impossible to see them. The redness has pretty much gone, no more fried tomatoes and overall the eye itself appears clean and clear.
The road doesn't end here, and it wont be all great and glory I know, but for now, I can breathe and see and that's enough to smile about.

Knight,

I am so pleased for you. I too remember the joy of seeing post-graft, even though I had a "good eye" as well, the difference in vision was astounding.

Thanks for making me remember the improvement I had with my graft, With all the problems I've had recently I have tended to forget.

Best of luck for even more improvement!