I've lost the vision in my right eye to what has been called "traumatic glaucoma." I was struck in that eye with a rock in a gang fight when I was working my way through my reckless younger days. The injury left a scar on the retina which obscured a small patch near the center of vision in that eye, causing me to become very left-eyed, although there was plenty of peripheral vision remaining. An optician back at the time of the injury led me to believe that glaucoma might develop in years to come. There has been no history of the condition in my family, I might point out.

When I was in my early 50s, a check-up by a local opthalmologist detected increased pressure in the right eye and drops were prescribed. I used them for about a year and then had another check-up. The idiot told me that the pressure was nicely down and that I could stop using the drops. No suggestion that I should "Come back in six months for another check-up", or "We'll send you a card when it's time for another check-up" (which would have been nice). Several years passed before I noticed that I was seeing a sort of oily film over the remaining peripheral vision in that right eye, and that nothing I did seemed to clear it up. You know, blinking, artificial tears, "Get the Red Out" drops, etc. I went to another opthalmologist who immediately put me back on drops. They didn't help. The pressure remained much too high. He did laser surgery twice to no avail. I went to the top dog at Yale/New Haven's vision center. More drops were tried. Finally, they gave it up. The vision was forever lost (I now see just a few small, very foggy areas of light in the midst of the dark grey void. But the pressure was dangerously high, so they did a trabeculectomy (trebby) on the eye. In a few weeks the pressure was higher than ever. I had scarred over their newly-created drainage ditch. So they did a second trabeculectomy (didn't even give me a discount price on the second one!) and followed it up with a series of daily shots inserting some sort of anti-cancer/anti-scarring fluid in the poor old orb. Not too bad, except when a young resident attempted to give me the needle before the eye was fully numb. He yelled at ME for jumping, for pete's sake!

A long story, but all seems okay now, other than my total lack of depth perception. I sometimes manage to pour the tea onto the table in Chinese restaurants, for instance, missing the cup completely. I use the drops in my good eye now, at the recommendation of a different local opthalmologist, and the pressure remains within safe levels. I get regular field of vision tests. When I realized that I had lost the vision because of poor advice from the first guy ("You can quit using the drops now"), I actually considered filing a malpractice suit. But I guess I'm just not the litigious type. I let it go.

So, if you've caught it early enough, before any serious loss of vision, the drops can really control the pressure. Get your check-up and pressure tests regularly, use the drops faithfully, and all will be well.

I get along fine, aside from occasionally bumping my right shoulder against some unseen obstruction, but, what the hell, there are a lot of good folks out there that can run into something that's right in front of them. At least I've got one eye that still works. And I'm too old to participate in any more street rumbles.

Grandpa Paton