This is a first in a series of posts on my odyssey with a dilated eye. I’ve tagged all the posts in the series here.
I was born with an optic nerve coloboma in my right eye. In mid-adulthood, that optic nerve detached. Because the vision was terrible to begin with, a retina specialist strongly advised me not to operate, pointing out that the odds of me getting any vision back on an eye with terrible vision was low, and on top of that there were risks with surgery, including infection or worse.
It was difficult letting go of that eye, psychologically speaking. Even though I never used it, there was a certain degree of finality to the whole episode. But it was also something that was hidden from a physical perspective. No one knew of the change except for me and the close friends and family I told about it.
A few months later, though, I encountered a new problem in that eye that was less hidden … and in many ways more traumatizing. This is the story of how I got through it.
It came out of the blue, with no warning. I was brushing my teeth on a Sunday night, peered absently at the mirror … and saw that my right eye was fully dilated in full bathroom light, a giant ball of black in the middle of my eye. I looked again, and again … and, to put it politely, nearly freaked out.
Now, I’m not one to freak out. I’m a thinking person, someone who stops and reasons things through. But when you realize that, suddenly, your eyes look different — that your pupil in your right eye looks freakishly large — well, that can rattle a person. It rattled me. And for one big reason: my job has me around kids all day, sometimes close up. I could not fathom how I would be perceived if someone got a good look at this demented new eye I’d suddenly gotten.
I didn’t tell my wife right away. I didn’t want to freak her out, and I thought that, maybe, it would resolve itself.
It didn’t. I made it through a day of work where, somehow, no one saw it (or at least, they didn’t say they saw it) I showed my wife.
I suppose it was a positive that the person I’m closest to had to look closely to notice. My eyes are naturally a dark brown, so the dilated pupil wasn’t as obvious. After talking with her, I decided to wait one more day, then call the ophthalmologist and ask about what to do.
I called on a Tuesday. The ophthalmologist (who is very good but also very busy) called back Thursday afternoon. Much to my surprise, I actually got choked up on the phone call. As in, I nearly started crying. I can’t remember the last time I cried — maybe ten or twelve years before that phone call? And here I was, almost crying because of a week of anxiety over this way in which I looked so different.
The ophthalmologist, who is married herself to someone who works around kids, understood. She prescribed me pilocarpine hydrochloride, an eye drop often given to glaucoma patients that can contract the pupil.
I picked them up Friday afternoon.