Observations with my Right Eye — Day 7 — PVD

Google AI — The Eye and Common Ailments

It was about 10 days ago on a Wednesday that I woke up and the vision in my right eye was totally blurred. I could tell light from dark, and I could make out some patches of colour, but that was it. It was like looking at the world through Tupperware. I always remember Bill Bryson, the travel writer, saying that living in Britain was like living under Tupperware. This problem was more severe. The Tupperware was in my eye.

I speculated at first that it was something to do with the cataract operation I’d had in my right eye exactly a year before. So, I researched this possibility with my left eye. Unfortunately, my somewhat short-sighted left eye only just works for reading. It also has a ‘moderate’ cataract. This tends to diffuse the image and makes it blurred in a way that glasses cannot correct. My reading and distance glasses correct the shortsightedness to some extent, but not the effect of the cataract. This bit of research and calling the organisation that did the cataract surgery a year before, left some doubt as to what exactly was going on. At that stage I was reasonably calm — one way or another I’d get to the bottom of this mystery, find the fix, and proceed happily on my way into the future.

I called Moorfield’s eye hospital, and that afternoon went straight there for a private appointment. Within about 5 minutes with a consultant, a condition called Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVD) was diagnosed (at the cost of £600, I might add, although the consultant picks up a mere £250) — nevertheless, a bargain if it were to save the sight in my right eye. The consultant offered me a vitrectomy the following day at the cost of £8,000. A possible fix but one that could create its own problems. I opted for the NHS, and she seemed to lose interest in me. I had not actually seen her rubbing her hands when I walked in, but I got the impression that I had just spoiled her day. Only three days later I had a call offering an emergency operation if I could turn up at 8:30am on Sunday 9th March. I considered this carefully — the sight in my right eye or stay in bed in the warm. A close call but decided that I ought to at least give the eye doctor a hearing so as not to upset his metrics on the NHS scoreboard. I arrived shortly after 9 and by about 11:30 they were sharpening the needles (in a manner of speaking) to stick into my eye.

These doctors are good. They have all the answers. Do we really need to drain the fluid? Might it clear up on its own? Yes, it might, but we need to see if the retina has become detached as it is in 70% of cases like this. Mmm, well, what if we waited and you could look later once the fluid was clearer? If it is detached it will be more difficult to fix at that point. Can we inspect it non-invasively with ultrasound (the product of research using Chat-Gpt, as recommended when dealing with visual phenomena such as hallucinations)? Well, we can but ultrasound is not all that reliable. I’m thinking, not as reliable say, as gouging your eye out with a kitchen fork, unfolding the retina on the bench and hitting it with a hammer, as is traditional when complex machinery develops a fault. What are the risks? 1 in 1000 of going totally blind — through infection or whatever? Can I insure this risk? I’m afraid not. Surely Ladbrokes or Paddy Power would cover it in this gambling obsessed world of corporate greed and no regard for individual suffering (I see that Virgil also offers online betting — which just shows how low that sleezy Branston has sunk to — just exercising my freedom of speech to express an opinion. Other selfish egocentric pickles are available). The rapid-fire questioning finally led me to ‘Ok, doctor, I’m swaying towards having it done’. And with that, a consent form was thrust under my right hand and a self-writing pen placed in it. Just as well I suppose, as it’s the sort of decision that would just bounce back and forth indefinitely without resolution.

This, incidentally, is what I would call a meta-decision or a meta-cognitive strategy. A decision about a decision. Not the decision itself but an evaluation about the sort of decision it is and using that knowledge to inform the decision itself. We all do this sort of thing all the time. I mention it because, although it is second nature for people, I wonder whether it’s yet an emergent property of AIs.

The injection of the gas bubble means that I can’t fly. In a plane that is — it’s not as if the gas bubble would lighten my head and pull it into the upper atmosphere. The changes in cabin pressure on a plane affect the gas in the eye and it’s generally better not to arrive at your destination with an empty eye socket (this may need some fact checking but fortunately there are many available for work now that America has abandoned facts. Speak truth to power — that’s what I say. In fact, I have a good mind to tell a certain president of the United States that his eyebrows may need some attention).

Not being able to drive, I am now somewhat housebound, although I can go shopping and generally hang around the streets closing one eye then the other while I survey the impressionist imagery. Fortunately, I’ve not been arrested, although many a schoolgirl must be wondering why I am winking at them in such a peculiar manner. At home, like de Kooning, I’m now temporarily a painter and decorator who can’t quite see what he’s doing. None of this is as bad as it sounds.

It’s early evening and I am sitting in the Grove pub with my nephew. He has 2 pints of Guinness in front of him. This is not an aberration of my vision. He really has just bought two pints for himself. He justifies this by pointing out that it is Saint Patrick’s Day. I think of the daffodils I bought in Waitrose the other day and how they have now fully bloomed.

I do not have to close my left eye to see the scene before me as a Manet painting. The dark wood bar stretches down the room into a murky distance. Lights sticking out on short poles form pools on the bar and the floor. Various shapes of people move about the scene. I look for a barmaid, but none are to be found. She and the other staff must have slipped off into another Manet painting. I note just how bad my left eye also is under these low levels of illumination. Nothing is clear beyond the froth of the Guinness just a foot or two away. I am considerably disadvantage and vulnerable at this low level of light.

When I return from the gents, a woman looms into vision and starts apologising. She says that she thought we had left. I have no idea what she is on about. I can neither make out her facial expressions, nor can I locate what she is gesturing towards. Nor can I identify whether my nephew, hopefully at the ready to rescue me, appears somewhere in the visual scene or not. It seems that she and her party have taken our seats. Distracted by my unexpected lack of visual awareness, I can barely formulate a coherent reply, beyond ‘that’s alright’. Perhaps having witnessed my non-plussed expression, she seems to want to persist in her apology. On any other occasion I would’ve taken the opportunity to enter into some sort of pub banter, but I am barely able to locate the edge of the bar to steady myself.