DOCTOR #4

3 days later on June 15, 2007, in the mid morning, my eyes went bat shit on me. Things starting floating through my eyes. geometric shapes like a kalaidescope. Perfect triangles and squares in bright primary colors. (And NO, it wasn't the Maui Wowie). It would have been a great show if I wasn't scared out of my mind. I had limited vision, then I could see objects, then nothing but the colors. WTF!!! I called my parents to come pick me up and off to the eye doc we went. At this point, I thought I was losing my mind. What did my eyes have to do with Lupus? Dr. Belislehad been my Optometrist for years and he took me right in. He started my eye exam and I wish I could have seen the look on his face because he sure sounded excited. The result, Uveitis. Yea, another thing to Google. Uveitis is the third leading cause of blindness in the US. What is it? Why it's INFLAMMATION of course. I had it in both eyes along with Koeppe Nodules (little BB's on my pupils), swollen optical discs (also known as Papilloedema) and Mutton Fat (it is as gross as it sounds). That one was almost impossible to Google but basically it is a layer of fat that covers your cornea and can cause blindness. He was almost giddy in a very professional way as he had never seen this in his practice here. He took pictures and documented every detail. Like a kid in a candy store. Probably beats fitting some pimply faced teen for glasses. He even gave me a picture of my eyeballs. I felt like a mommy getting her first ultrasound. Mario was going to totally freak out. He started me on steroid Prednisolone drops, Isopta drops ( to keep my eyes dialated every day for weeks to break up the mutton fat) (that was fun) and 60 mg of the dreaded steroid Prednisone. Prednisone is used in high doses to relieve inflamation. By this time, I was over my aversion to pills and was willing to do anything I needed to get better. But, who knew it was going to get rougher before it got better. Dr.B was the first one to mention the word SARCOIDOSIS and the term Granulatomous. I didn't hear it (like I didn't have enough going on) but, 'dog with a bone' (mom) did and she honed in on that big time. Okay, I will stop calling my mom 'dog with a bone' but, if you ask her, she would probably be proud of that name. Okay, so Sarcoidosis was such an odd word