Now & Then: A win for this old codger

I finally got rid of my floater.

No, not my toilet float. How would I flush without that?

I’m talking about that big spider-looking thingy in my eye. You know, the eye floater.

I’ve researched eye floaters and found this definition at visioncenter.org: “Eye floaters are spots you might see in your field of vision. They appear as gray or black specks, cobwebs, or strings that float around when your eyes move. If you try to look at them directly, they will dart away quickly.”

I guess you could call them eye darters, those sneaky little things.

The website lists several causes of floaters, the No. 1 being aging. Wouldn’t you know it? Getting old seems to get the blame for most every ailment. Or, in this case, “nothing but an annoyance.”

I’ve been annoyed by these little hangers-on since I was young. So, no age-related condition in that case. 

“Eye floaters are common in young individuals, especially those with myopia,” says bing.com. Myopia, for those of you with perfect eyesight, is just a fancy word for nearsightedness.

Myopia can cause floaters in youth “due to changes in the vitreous (don’t ask) as their eyes grow longer.” I guess my nearsightedness caused my youthful floaters.

But wait. What does aging have to do with my floaters? The good folks at Vision Center say that the vitreous “liquefies and compresses with time, causing it to pull away from the inside of the eyeball. These clumps are not entirely transparent and cast shadows on your retina. The shadows are what you see as floaters.”

So, when I aged into my 60s, those cute little youthful floaters, or darters, turned into tarantulas. Then they were more than annoyances to my old eyes.

My spiders tended to get in the way when I tried to focus on something, like when I was reading. Instead of darting, they would just sit there in my line of vision.

Last year, on the advice of my optometrist, I went to a specialist to have cataract surgery. The ophthalmologist checked my eyes and found something on one retina and sent me to a retina specialist.

That led to a combo surgery on my right eye, with one doc taking care of the cataract and the other correcting the retina. 

I had asked the specialist if he could remove my floater while he was in there. “Sure,” he said. “I can do that.”

So now I had one eye with no floaters and the other with what I called my spider. I neglected to have the other floater removed during the left cataract surgery.

After several months of one clear eye and one spidery orb, I decided to seek help from the retina specialist. I told him about my frustration and he was more than happy to schedule me for another procedure.

The day came and they put me on a gurney wearing a gown and with an IV plugged into my arm. A masked Doc came in and covered my eyes. The anesthesia allowed him to do his thing while I felt nothing.

I went home with a patch over my left eye. If I’d been wearing a do-rag, I could have been arrested for impersonating a pirate.

Anyway, the next morning I went back to Doc and he removed the patch. My vision was blurry for a while but by the afternoon I could see clearly.

With no floater.

After all those years of trying to see around a spider, it was great to have a clear field of vision. 

Hmm. Wonder what other surprises my advancing age has for me.

■ Larry Penkava is a writer for Randolph Hub. 

Contact: 336-302-2189, larrypenkava@gmail.com.