AMD
WTF?
I was diagnosed with this, during covid.
I guess this is what they wrote on the report from my eye examination.
I went for the examination when I noticed I had something new and weird in my vision, a kind of distortion of straight edges, such that they were no longer straight.
In addition, I see something that looks a little like an extra luminous planet, in the sky, wherever I look, even when I shut my eyes.
I attended the examination on a bright sunny day, during lockdown, I guess maybe May or June 2020.
I wished I had taken sunglasses, for the return journey, walking back from the opticians, maybe a half mile from home.
The exam was carried out by young girls, I guess early twenties, all wearing masks, as was I, as directed. I met two.
The process was impersonal. I wasn’t actually looked in the eye, other than by instruments, in the few words we exchanged.
The whole visit was about 15 minutes, from the moment I walked in the door, to the moment I walked out again.
Of that time, I probably spent ten minutes or so waiting.
The optician practice itself was a high street private practice, acting on probably government directive, funded by government, to stand in for NHS, who were most likely maxed out, attending to covid victims.
So they were probably getting funds to do some NHS work I guess. I have never been bothered enough to actually check this.
Life’s too short.
Before the examination, in preparation, I was given some eye drops, which dilated my pupils.
During the examination, a light was shone in my eyes, brighter than any I’ve seen in my life before.
On completing the examination, the girl doing the exam declared I have AMD.
She called this “Acute Macular Degeneration”, by my recollection.
This was different from what we find now on the www for that acronym; “Age related Macular Degeneration”, but I guess she meant the same thing.
She said it with no compassion I could detect, again with no eye contact.
Yet she was explaining in her opinion, as my professional eye examiner, that I was going blind.
She did say I was somewhat younger than average to be subject to this, but there appeared no doubt in her mind, as to her verdict.
I presume this verdict has since gone on my medical record, therefore standing in the way of me continuing to do some things, like driving, for example.
She instructed me to return, in six months or so, so that they might monitor the rate of deterioration of my condition.
After the examination, on the way walking back home, I could see nothing, not even to see where to put my feet when walking. The sunlight was so bright it was painful, hence why I wished I’d taken sunglasses. And everything was blurred, with rainbows.
At home, alone again, locked down, I had to come to terms with the understanding I was officially going blind, after more than fifty years of seeing all things that could be seen, ever so clearly.
Of course some doubt started to creep in, me being an eternal optimist.
I spoke with my father, mentioning the experience, and he laughed.
Apparently he experienced something similar about the same age as me, well actually a little earlier. In his forties.
They discovered something on his retina, on one eye, like a bump, which had appeared. He is now in his eighties and it never got any worse, he still has reasonable eyesight, though needing glasses, as is normal at that age.
This fits exactly what my eye examiner described she saw in my eye, only one, the left. Nothing was reported for the right eye.
It’s been almost three years now, since that eye exam, and my condition has got no worse.
I didn’t go back, because I know too much about the nature of light, and the damage it can do to things, if it is not respected.
The pupil of our eyes is small for a reason.
Dilating it, and then shining a very bright light onto the retina, even if only now and then for a six-monthly check up, is not so good.
But it makes some money for the optician health industry, if damage is done by those eye examinations. Then they get to prescribe some expensive treatments.
My condition has changed now, in a way that I no longer see straight lines as wobbly again.
Also, I can only see “The planet” when I consciously check it out. It is fully transparent. It does not obscure things I look at.
The one thing it has affected, is my ability to see writing.
Reading things on paper has become noticeably difficult, to the point I can no longer be bothered.
I notice no difference on a monitor or phone, though my spelling seems to have been affected. I often miss spelling mistakes, whereas I never did before.
Does that matter? Really? No.
Actually it is a plus point now, given the occurrence of Ai, which would deem to replace us.
It can’t replicate my spelling mistakes, as yet.
Addendum:
I feel for folk genuinely suffering from AMD. The period of believing I had it was one of the most miserable I’ve experienced in my life. I look forward to future times when the motivation of health establishments will be genuinely for the good of people, rather than just for profit. Then maybe we’ll see some real cures for things that we should have had cures for long ago. I think this will come about with Kardashev Money, that I write about a lot.
