An Eyecare Foundation Model for Clinical Assistance

Well... the accident that led to my eye being removed was in my workshop. Specifically, it was caused by my bench saw and its poor maintenance. The initial damage seemed slight but over time, my eye 'felt wrong'- tight and a bit achy, so I went to a local private hospital. There a young optician who did not seem bothered, prescribed eye drops. These had no impact at all, so I went to two other opticians, one of who said I had a detached retina. Finally I went to a state hospital and saw an ophthalmologist. She said the eye was infected and I needed to act fast if I wanted to save my sight. I tried to get it operated upon in that hospital, but they were keen to keep me 'under observation' far a few days. As I could still see out of that eye, they were reluctant to remove it. By this time, I was in quite a bit of pain and knew the only option was complete enucleation. So I discharged myself and went back to the private hospital. Even they were reluctant to operate until I had three second opinions, one of which I had to get from a specialist in Thailand. All of them seemed very worried that I had not yet had surgery to remove the dam thing.

My first mistake was in seeing a optometrists rather than ophthalmologists. However, all of them failed to recognize my case as one where I needed to be referred. To an optometrist, even a broken leg would be treated with eye drops.

The other thing that went wrong is that the surgeons I saw were nervous about proceeding with enucleation even when my condition became very advanced. I think that this nervousness came from the fact that I could still see out of that eye, and as a matter of insurance they wanted me to be blind before they would operate. But by then the infection might have spread to outside my eyeball.

Following surgery was a bit of a trip. For a few days I hallucinated in my missing eye... strange worm-like things, very Giger. Even now, in response to sudden movement or loud noises, I 'see' bright lights in that eye.