Way back in the days of Ziggy Stardust, I stood on the floor of the Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin awaiting David Bowie’s appearance on stage. As we all lingered, Mr. Bowie toyed with us by showing a short clip of the 1929 movie: Un Chien Andalou. I innocently watched this black and white film.
For this who don’t know the storyline, I highly recommend watching this short 40 second film and see Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s most famous scene. Spoiler alert, short as this is, it is NOT for the squeamish and these images could follow you for life. As a young Midwestern gal, I was completely unprepared for what Ziggy was sharing with us. The packed arena groaned at the end of this film. I guess I wasn’t the only one caught off guard.
Now, these many, many years later, Ziggy’s sense of humor [or whatever sensation Mr. Bowie was attempting to teach us] has changed to an aqueous one. For those uninitated to the schematics of our eyes, aqueous humor is basically the fluid that flows in our eyes and also in simple terms maintains the intraocular pressure and inflates the globes of our eyes amongst its many other functions. But how does aqueous humor impact me this week?
Well, it has to do with the narrow angles of my eyes. Without boring you, the space between my cornea and the iris of my eye has narrowed. This, in my Ophthalmologist’s world is called: Narrow Angles, Closed Angle or Angle-Closure Glaucoma and leads me to be at a high risk for glaucoma. Fun times [I’m being sarcastic, for those who don’t know me well]. Have a look for yourself, in the image below.
Which means, I’m having some surgery today, wherein the Ophthalmologist will be using a laser to blast a very fine hole into my eye…more precisely my iris. They tell me my eye will be numbed, a sort of contact lens inserted and the laser will blast into my eye.
The whole procedure will go something like this short video.
Being a visual designer I’m actually-as many of us I’m sure are- very in love with my vision, so having this type of procedure done to my eye has given me the very same hibbie-jeebies that David Bowie’s pre-concert flick gave me those-oh, so many years ago. Only this time, it’s happening to me. And adding to the drama, today’s procedure only involves my right eye. I get to enjoy the fun all over again, with my left eye, in two weeks.
Now maybe my Ophthalmologist didn’t want to freak me out, so he only told me the basics of this procedure. His nurse called me and gave me more details and when I signed consent papers she gave me a very basic handout describing the surgery. I went out and researched the above medical video, which brought up those crazy, eye-slitting images Ziggy Stardust embedded in my half-baked, pre-concert brain decades ago.
So, I’ll let the aqueous humor [hee, hee] help me deal with the fears I have leading up to today’s action plan. After my appointment, I’m planning on laying low, administering my steroid eyedrops and hoping for the best. Maybe I’ll even listen to Five Years from my favorite Glam Rocker as I psych up to do this all over again with my left eye. We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes…
My Right Eye Before: My Right Eye After: Upload to follow
Oh, and BTW that ‘little prick’ you’ll feel-as the Dr. explained-felt more like an industrial, automatic nail gun piercing thru my iris.
