thankful

the other week, my mom was telling me how she suddenly couldn't read the numbers on her camera during photography class.  she said her vision was a bit distorted inferiorly.

we don't look for zebras when diagnosing.  i considered possible cataracts, refractive error, epiretinal membrane or even macular degeneration.

but i knew her history of blood pressure fluctuating.  i had hoped it wasn't a blood vessel pop...but it was pretty common in folks my mom's age.

she went to the ophthalmologist who confirmed it was a longstanding BRVO (branch retinal vein occlusion) that finally manifested to some minor swelling.  he had also mentioned vitreous hemorrhaging as well--which is not what you want to hear for someone with BRVO.  it was possible that the longstanding BRVO didn't get enough proper blood flow to a spot in retina that it started making frail blood vessels to supply more oxygen.  occasionally those frail blood vessels cause bleeding and greatly complicate the treatment and prognosis of BRVO.

i was a bit in despair that my mom, who had always bragged her eyesight was so good (whereas my dad, my sister and myself were coke bottled four-eyes), was diagnosed in korea and here alex and i were in the field that could help her, but our hands were tied.  what was the point of going through all of that training when we couldn't even help our very own family??  that ophthalmologist in changwon said he didn't do any fluorescein angiographies and that she needed to see a retina specialist--which meant going to busan or seoul.  we even considered flying her over here and getting treatment with alex--who also had kaiser benefits that could extend to in-laws (oh thank you so much, honey!)

but thankfully, the ophthalmologist in korea sent the medical records over and she had actually a resolving BRVO and the hemorrhage was likely from an old posterior vitreous detachment (or even a retina tear--which was not found upon examination).  my mom and dad were slightly worried because they knew i had suffered from CRVO (100% of the eye is affected) and the risks that translated for BRVO (only 50% of the eye is affected with much better prognosis).  alex pulled some strings through his connection with other retina fellows who trained in seoul university--to which she graciously had my mom see a jules-stein fellow trained ophthalmologist within a week (vs 1 month out with other docs my parents tried to book themselves). 

alex was able to read the assessment and testings the busan ophthalmologist kindly sent over.  my mom was in good hands and prognosis was great.  she could just be monitored for now since it seemed to be self-resolving.  praise God! 

i was so thankful to alex, his retina training, his co-fellows and that he was in a similar field as me--he understood the very nature of BRVO and my experience with CRVO.