Haven't been writing much lately, been having some weird vision problems that are making my computer work (and reading, watching TV, driving...) a pain in the butt. About a week ago I had a flashing begin in my left eye late one night. Last time that happened, it was just a migraine halo. So I took a Maxalt and went to bed. But the next day the light was still there, and a few days later a shadowy area appeared in that eye, not good. So, having had retinal surgery before, in the same eye, I'm thinking, great, I've torn a retina... again. I've been sneezing hysterically for the last month or so with allergies, so I thought with my luck the strain pulled it loose. It took a while to realize that it was just one eye doing it, so it definately wasn't a migraine, I could see the flashing and the cloud even when I closed my eye, which is really annoying.

So I got up early enough to call the doctor's office today, not wanting a detached retina, and called and got an emergency appointment. After a visual field test and exam her best guess was it's an optic neuritis attack from my MS. I haven't seen my neurologist in like a year, there's not much he can do except give me antidepressants and the really painful self-inflicted shots in the leg that I took for a few months and felt worse. Plus I haven't had proper insurance the last year since I've been officially self-employed. So the optomotrist leaves the room to call my neurologist (same clinic) and comes back in and says "he wants you to have an MRI tomorrow and see him on next week". Only problem is, I don't have insurance to cover a $1000+ MRI. And he told her he won't treat me without having it done. She said the treatment is steroids, no problem, I have an extra Medrol Dosepack from another problem, but after reading up on it, it looks like the steroids are to be given intravenously. Crap...

So the nurse is checking to see how much the MRI is for grins, and trying to make an appointment with the neurologist for Monday anyway. I got triple charged for my visit today because it was an office visit, a visual field, and she wrote me a prescription for reading glasses (which she told me she didn't have time to check me for since this was an emergency visit). And actually that wasn't that bad, because it turned out they had been undercharging me for our appointments with our medical discount plan. They'd been charging me 20%, which was working out well, and then the nurse found out when she called them about the MRI that we should be paying 80%... oops. Needless to say, I made a hasty exit after that. I hope they don't send us another bill, we're still trying to settle up with them on our physicals from last year with a "real" insurance company (who wouldn't pay for anything!).

So my vision seems to be steadily decreasing, my RK has worn off and I still have the side effects (haloes, etc.), plus the 40+ inability to read closeup has kicked in, and now my optic nerve is freaking out. And my eyes, head and back are aching from all the tests today. And all I want to do suddenly is read and make pretty websites. I'm still working on my kitty's site, let you know when there's more than a home page there.