h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, that was easy.

It was a long wait; they really scheduled me to come in too early. I lay in the gurney for two hours, much of that listening to a bawling, post-op, four year old boy down the hall.

I woke up a disoriented and had a few coughs, throat sore from the intubation, and some burning in my nose, as expected, probably stitches. It didn't take long to recover from the anesthesia and within the hour I was up, out and home.

I was miserable for weeks after my last surgery. I think I'll be fine to go back to work Monday, but I'll probably stay home anyway. I mean, seriously, besides the surgery, it'll be Monday the Thirteenth, for "BoB's" sake.

I've got a hell of a nose bleed but it's slowing down. I tried out my Neti pot for the first time. I don't know why I find it so satisfying. I've been curious since I first heard of them. Weird, I know.

By the way, this bow tie they gave me is riding a bit high and fogging my glasses.

http://imgur.com/cIIkP3f

I can't say for certain that the surgery directly affected my vision, but since the surgery I've been able to see fairly straight ahead most of the time. I've only had a couple of periods where I had to significantly turn my head to resolve my vision. I've removed part of my occluding tape on my main pair of glasses so that I can see straight and it only blocks my left eye vision to my right. A few times I think I've fatigued my bad nerve and I had to turn my head again. This usually happens when I'm panning back and forth a lot, like when driving, shopping, or watching my dog play in the park.

If my vision never improves from here, I can accept it. Seeing straight ahead is SO much of an improvement to even almost straight ahead.

That's very good to hear. I hope you continue to see improvement.

I've tentatively removed the occluding tape from my glasses.

We'll see how long it remains off.


The motorcycle ride home will be a good test.

Hope you've got plenty of Goo Gone

Heh... that's the reason I searched for reusable vinyl labels. If I wanted to, I could have also gotten a "liquid chalk pen" and drawn curious patterns on them.

It doesn't much more curious than this http://h2g2.com/h2g2/skins/Classic/images/top_logo.jpg

Better that logo in erasable chalk on my glasses than sloppily tattooed on my wrist.

For no damn good reason, my diplopia returned this evening. Over the last few months it has mostly gone away, only returning when I've had a long day driving, riding, and/or shopping... doing something where I've had to scan left and right a lot.

But tonight it came back in the middle of a short (3 mile) ride to the Duck. Once there, when I'm not looking in the distance, it wasn't noticable. But once I got back on the bike it came back with a vengence.

A possible factor could be a change in the weather. The temp and humidity has dropped significantly and it's a very windy evening, winds from the ESE.

When I get home I'll raid the medicine cabinet for my antihistamines, anti-inflammatories, decongestants, and whatever else I can find that might mitigate this.

However, with even this minor relapse, I've decided to just accept the possibillity that from now on I should keep my eyepatches handy.

My vision did, mostly, resolve after this posting, hence no follow up posts since then.

It didn't go away completely. If I looked far to my right, I will always . But it wasn't enough of an issue to use an "occluder". I've kept them handy, stuck to an expired, laminated insurance card in my wallet, just in case.

But now I've had to resort to using one again.

I did NOT have a splitting headache this time, so that's good. I had a bit of congestion; a brief bit of nose bleed, likely from picking my nose (bit of chicken/egg whether the nose picking or the bleeding and scabbing came first); and some noticeable, but not particularly painful, sinus pressure behind my right eye. As my sinuses are clearing, my diplopia seems to be increasing. It changes during the day depending on what I'm doing as previously mentioned, but it seems to be happening for longer periods this week. It started just a couple of weeks ago.

I do expect it to resolve eventually.

I'm also trying out a new material for my "occluders". Instead of the black label material, I'm trying out some non-adhesive window frosting material. Since it's "non-adhesive", I'm a little worried about whether it might fly off in the wind when I'm riding my motorcycle. I like that it doesn't effect how much light reaches my eye which keeps my exposure levels even between eyes. I've also trimmed the area occluded down as I can always see single vision within my near vision, arm-length, reading distances. Now I only occlude the upper/inner quadrant of my left lens. This covers just the region where my vision diverges.

The black patch, when someone bothered to comment or inquire about it, typically illicited some question or comment about it being some digital "Google Glass" type thing.

I don't know if the frosted material will allay these fears, but I hope so.


The most significant factor of this bout of diplopia is how it might affect my future career plans. It's put a damper on my quadcopter piloting practice. Trying to pilot a drone with diminished depth perception can be rather unnerving.




Anyway, mostly this post is just to document yet another bout of diplopia so I can keep track of these things. This one breaks the trend of these things coming in winter, so that's notable.

My diplopia seems to be getting worse. Yesterday I was even having trouble reading my laptop monitor. I can't see straight even close up most of the time. It's still shifting in and out but it seems like it's more out than in since Saturday.

I'm still optimistic that it will resolve, but it will probably take a couple of months.

My mother asked me to go to the doctor, but what's the point. There is nothing he can do. All he'll say is let's give it some time to see if it resolves on its own like it has in the past. If it doesn't his options are dire. I could wear prismatic glasses that will shift my right eye vision by a certain angle, but that doesn't work for me as there isn't a specific angle that my right eye deviates. It changes by which direction I'm looking at moment to moment. The only other option is strabisimus surgery which will basically leave my right eye locked directly ahead. Screw that! That's not a solution, that's just a different problem.

So, I wait...

I made an appointment with the otolaryngologist Monday.

The diplopia still comes and goes every few minutes, but for the last few weeks the pain has greatly increased in severity and frequency.


I also found some more information online that informs me that this isn't such a rare condition after all. I found a few studies about diplopia linked to sinusitus and pansinusitus. One suggested that bacterial infections are typically involved, contradicting something I read elsewhere that suggested viral infections are more typical of sinus infections, but that may not have been linked to diplopia.

While I hate to resort to broad spectrum antibiotics, besides the general issues of our overuse of them, I hate to decimate the good bacteria in me.

I hope you can get some answers from the doc

Ditto 2legs' post, BG,

The ENT put me on ten days of Ciprofloxacin and as far as I can tell it didn't make a dent.

So, now I'm on a further ten days of Bactrin (sulfa antibiotic).

If this doesn't work I'll go in for a culture. I wouldn't be surprised if it's some resistant bacteria strain.

I'm 7 days into a 14 day round of a combination of Amoxicillin and Clavulanate after getting a culture done last week. The culture showed I had two different, fairly common strains of bacterial infection that should respond to this combination of antibiotics. But here I am, halfway through and I don't feel significantly improved. I still have a headache, diplopia, and mild drainage. Also, I'm certain my diplopia has gotten worse these last few weeks. I'm concerned that the delay in resolving the sinusitis may leave permanent damage to my vision.

I'm also rather depressed.

Reminds me of my last lab before surgery early this year.

Results showed 2 infectious organisms, one gram positive, one gram negative, which meant for practical purposes, separate antibiotics were required to treat them and care had to be taken the antibiotics didn't react with one another, neutralizing them.

On the bright side, since removal of the infected patent urachus* and a concluding round of post-op antibiotics, I've had no relapse since.




*Vestige of the umbilical cord, running between the navel and bladder, which most people, thankfully, don't have to put up with.

That's good to hear.

I'm taking one pill with the two antibiotics, so no worries of interaction.