Update (20/09/2018)

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Hi all,

As usual, I'm sorry for the lack of posts over the past couple of months. But not a lot has happened. Well... maybe some, but small improvements!One difference some frequent readers may know is that I changed from Tumblr to WordPress. It's mainly down to not really digging Tumblr as a whole, and preferring WordPress' way of publishing stuff.Over the last few months, I've noticed that my eyesight is slowly but surely getting better. The sister and I went to see both League of Gentlemen in Oxford & Janelle Monae at The Roundhouse. Now for LoG, we were row A, bang in the middle with a beautiful view. So luckily I didn't strain my eyes as much as I usually would.But a couple weeks later, we went to see Monae at The Roundhouse, in the middle of the standing area. Now I usually have to strain a lot from the distance we were from the stage, but I could see Janelle, her dancers and her band with perfect ease. I could see small facial details, and I never felt so happy to be seeing what I was.The big update is that I finally have a date regarding my refractions appointment. It's in December, and I hope it's very positive. I believe I'm not seeing my consultant before then, most likely in the new year, but it's nice going back just before Christmas as I give the team snacks and gifts around Xmas. As you have to show them some appreciation for the hard work they put in.I need to do another update shot on my eye. Both front and side to compare with before, during and after transplant surgery. So I hope to do that soon.

But for now, take care!

Ollie

Glasses/Contact Lenses Appointment - 26/07/2017

Before I start off this post about my recent appointment trying to correct my vision, I did happen to go hospital the week before in the form of an emergency one. I was experiencing very painful headaches. So this leads to me going in, but the pressure in both my eyes was apparently okay, and the onboard eye expert said it could be the eye drops making some trouble, in which to just try and relax as much as possible, and use moisturising eye drops whenever possible.

Anyway, here’s the main blog:

Yesterday, I had an appointment to see if glasses/contact lenses would help with the severe astigmatism that I have after my cornea transplant.

All I know about the astigmatism is that it’s very severe. Glasses COULD help with my vision, but as I do have one good eye, the glasses would consist of one thick lens and the other being normal. This would cause some problems with my brain trying to understand what’s going, thus confusing, and then thus making it a very difficult job to try and tolerate it. So the glasses are a no.

EDIT: Glasses would be a no for me anyway because, apparently, my pupil doesn’t contract as well as it should, as thus have a larger-than-normal pupil. <insert bowie eye reference here>

We did try contact lenses, but the ones that the lovely ladies fit in were a tad tight and were very uncomfortable. So my contact lens specialist said that we’d have to go back another time while she orders some more lenses, but did say that the lenses would likely not improve anything. Which would mean having incision surgery to fix the astigmatism. YAY MORE SURGERY YAS!!! I say that with sarcasm, obviously.

I don’t know when I come back to try out the new contact lenses that are being ordered for me, but the next time I definitely know I’ll be back with my consultant is late October.

Hospital check up appointment - 29/06/2017

Hi all,

As of writing this, I had my check up.

To cut a potential long blog short, the usual check up and scans happened and I finally went and saw my consultant.

The vision on the left eye is improving. With still some hazing going on from the recent rejection attempt. As it seems that whenever I’m not put on steroid eye drops, the cornea starts being rejected. So, for the time being, I am having to be on them for what my team said for at least a year. And as the left eye vision is improving, I will be going back in a few months to see the in-house optician to see if glasses will work. If they don’t, then they’ll start looking at having further surgery to improve the structure of the cornea. LASIK basically. Or possible incisions.

Just before I was about to voice concern about possible degrading of vision in my right eye, my consultant said that as he hadn’t seen the right eye for some time he’d check my notes and see if the scans indicate anything. And they did. Minor progression of Keraotoconus. Considering my CXL surgery was well over 2 years ago, and only minor progression has come out of it, that surgery did the job quite well. But 1 more cross linking is needed to try and halt the rest of the progression.

So I’m back in 2-3 months about glasses and then back in October to see my consultant again regarding the future in which I undergo surgery.

A bummer yes that I need more cross linking, but from one personal experience of it, it did the job well. And despite it being extremely painful, it was well worth the torture. I know a lot of people that didn’t have any pain or just mild soreness, so please just assume that my painful experience was just merely a bad reaction to the surgery on my part.

The future is somewhat bright. It pushes some goals further away, but sometimes you have to worry about yourself before doing what you want to do. I want to go back into my music, but, as always, is on hold for the meantime.

If any of you have questions regarding my past cross linking or whatever, please do free feel to message me.

Have a good day!

Ollie

Appointment for October

I finally have a date for my next hospital appointment and it will be in late October, in which, hopefully, I’ll be discussing about having further eye surgery to remove the stitches in my cornea. The future looks bright!

My Transplant

So most of you might know, I am awaiting for a corneal transplant. Luckily, I only had to wait a couple months on the waiting list. My surgery will be around October. And I’m looking forward to it. The reboot of my life as I like to say.

Now some of you might be asking ‘Why are you excited for a painful 2 years of recovery?’ and I’d say because I want to get back on my feet and take on the world, but my eyes are stopping me from that. I want to become a music producer. And that means staring at screens all day everyday, even trying to write this post together is a challenge and a half. I want things to go back to normal, and want to be able to recover both physically and mentally and get myself out there in the world of work. Sadly, it takes time, but I won’t be a burden to myself or my family and use the free time I have to my advantage. I look forward to the future.

The exact procedure I am having is a Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty (DALK). A video of the sort of operation I’ll be having is in the link down below. Though it will likely be different to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hwtSeiFnV4

Two years means a long way for me, but something tells that it will go faster than I can say Keraotoconus. 

If you have any questions or messages of support, please do feel free to use the fan mail feature. 

Enjoy your days,

Ollie x

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