Quantum Mechanics

I love this stuff. :wizard:

Retina Surgery

I forgot to mention my retina saga. On Sunday July 8 I had some psychedelic light streaks back and forth along top and bottom of visual periphery. A half hour later I had a black streak surrounded by distortion on the right side, and decided it was ER time. At the ER some purported doctor looked through an undilated pupil and said there wasn’t anything to do unless and until the retina actually detached, which he said hadn’t happened. The discharge instructions said I should see an ophthalmologist the next day. On the way home, looking at the sky through the windshield (Becky driving) it looked like the sky was filled with a swarm of gnats. These were, however, tiny black dots which had filled my eyeball.

Arriving home, decided to call Darrel Smith, our long-time optometrist. He wasn’t there, but returned my call a few hours later. He said there were some things that ought to get immediate treatment even if the retina was not detached. We met him at the office at 9:00 p.m. and he dilated the eye. As he was peering in, his associate Curtis Anderson came in. So I got examined by both. Darrel didn’t see anything, Curtis thought there might be something at the bottom of retina, maybe a tear, maybe not. They both decided it wasn’t an emergency.

The next day Curtis got me an appointment for Thursday with a retinal specialist in Topeka. Nevertheless, I went ahead and got examined by local O.D. Lynn O’Neill, whom I’d consulted many years ago when floaters first appeared. He dilated the eye and said yes, it looked like a retinal tear and he could “fix it” in about five minutes with laser. I declined his offer, preferring to wait for retinal specialist.

Thursday July 12 retinal specialist Blake Cooper did laser surgery to repair the tear. On conclusion, he announced the “bad news”: no reading for at least a week. Well, my time is primarily spent either reading words on paper or on a monitor. I started immediately having withdrawal symptoms on account of not being able to use a computer.

Saturday following the surgery I could see a little area at top of vision that darkened and lightened with heartbeat – like visual throbbing. I called Cooper’s office and got on call doc who said it was probably normal following laser surgery. Sunday evening that was gone and in it’s place was a bundle of crap that looked like a tangled bunch of black thread. The ends hanging down from top of vision would wave back and forth as I moved eyeball back and forth. Concerned about a ruptured blood vessel, I planned to call Cooper’s office first thing Monday morning.

Monday, Becky and I got up, had breakfast, and both fell asleep in our respective recliners, not waking up until 2:00 that afternoon. While pondering this excessive sleep (we had both gone to bed before midnight), I called Cooper’s office and got appointment the next day, at their office in Shawnee Mission.

Tuesday, July 17, Cooper dilated the eye and peered in, prounounced it looked good and I could start reading Friday. The tangle of black thread was, in his opinion, blood that settled to bottom of eyeball (things are actually upside down and reversed from what you see, so stuff I saw at the top of visual area was actually at bottom of eyeball).

So, Friday, July 20 it was back to work and back to computer. No new incidents, except Friday night I bent over to pick up something from the floor and a yellow streak started to appear on the right side. I immediately stood up and it immediately went away.

As explained to me, the clear vitreous fluid in eyeball is in a sack attached to retina and it detaches from retina with age. Sometimes it detaches “violently” and tears the retina or, in worst case scenarious, pulls some or all the the retina right off the back of the eyeball. The laser surgery I had was done to seal up the torn area so additional fluid wouldn’t leak in behind the retina which could eventually cause detachment. I gather over the next six months the rest of the vitreous will detach from retina, hopefully without causing any more tears or a retinal detachment.

They tell me such of the crap in my eyeball that’s blood will eventually go away; such of the crap that’s floaters won’t. The swarm of gnats has gotten somewhat better already. There are a couple of humungous floaters now, that frequently blur the central area of vision in right eye. I’m slowly acclimating to them, as I already have to the various other floaters in both eyes.

Woo-Hoo I’m Norton Free

So my Norton AV ‘scription expired on the laptop and the prog was pestering me to renew. In fact, it almost auto-renewed. If anybody has installed a Symantec product, watch out because it defaults on “auto-renew”, not so good especially if you bought the prog online with a credit card which they’d have on file. I caught it on the day it was scheduled to auto-renew and managed to log in and “opt out”; plus, the credit card they had on file was expired. I was going to install different stuff a couple weeks ago, but the retinal tear set me back, especially after the laser surgery and the doc said “no reading for at least a week!” So today I got to it, after I mowed the yard and did a little cleaning in the garage.

The uninstall of Norton Internet Security was pretty easy. Just went to Symantec site, downloaded uninstaller, and ran it. No problemo, except it wouldn’t run until I uninstalled my PIM prog, ACT. Don’t know what that was all about. I had to search clear back to some old zip disks to find my ACT installation program to re-install it. It’s a 2000 version.

I was going to install Sygate Personal Firewall, based on research I did a couple years ago. But, come to find out Sygate got bought out by….. yes, Symantec. And of course Symantec discontinued the “free” version of Sygate. There were still Sygate downloads out there, but I decided to look around again. I ended up with Comodo, which is free. It installed real damn fast, as in no time, really. No more than a split second after I clicked “install” the “successfully installed” window popped up. I thought there must have been a mistake, but it really is installed.

Then I installed Grisoft’s AVG anti-virus. I didn’t need to research AV progs again. Already using it on one of the PC’s and it seems fine. And free.

And now I’m free of Symantec! :blat: Woo-hoo!