Right now, I'm off from work because of a detached retina. I have no idea how that happened. I was approved for FLMA and my leave started Thursday (Nov. 10), but the FLMA benefits will kick in in seven days (on Nov. 17) after the start of my leave.
I had surgery Thursday on it up in Columbus, Ohio. I left with my cousin around 8:30am that morning, and my check-in was at 11am. My surgery was at 2pm, but because of some problems with another patient in surgery in the morning hours, my surgery was around 5pm.
I finally got home that night at 9:45pm. I had to do a followup appointment in Chillicothe, OH at 10am the next morning. I wasn't happy with the short night I had. I have a number of drops I'm suppose to use for a while, and sleep with a shield over my right eye to help protect it while I'm sleeping.
When all this happened, I thought it was an inflamed optic nerve I had when I was 28 years old back in 1995. I couldn't see out of my right eye after having rubbed it trying to get the sweet out of my eyes. After a couple of days I finally listened to my mom and went to see a doctor.
He told me that he wanted to do an MRI on me because I was showing symptoms of MS. That really scared the hell out of me, being 28 years old at the time, and having a full life ahead of you.
Well, we did the MRI and I waited for a day or two for the phone call for the results. It finally came and he said that there were white lesions on my brain that would indicate MS. He said that he thought I would have 17% chance of developing it, and 83% chance not. He wanted to give me steroid shots to help get my vision back in my right eye. I said no. He said that he felt that since I refused the steroid shots, he couldn't be my doctor. I thought, he really wasn't my doctor anyway.
So after about three months, my vision came back on it's own. Two years later I experienced inflammation in both of my legs for a short period of time. That however may have been caused by riding my exercise back pretty hard.
And then shortly after that little incident, my balance was off some. I couldn't even lift my right arm to open the back door to my house one day. But then that might have been cause by me rolling out in the back yard to stay limbered.
After a couple of months, those symptoms also went away.
During those years I had researched MS. I found out 2 out of every 3 people with MS are women. MS effects people differently in many ways. It's not known what causes it. Some possible reasons could be vitamin D deficiency. That could mean not enough sunlight. There seems to be a lot of people with MS in northern Europe. Places like that that are away from the equator.
To this day, it's still in the back of my mind about whether I have it. Now, I really haven't had anymore symptoms of what I experienced back in 1995 and 1997, but like I said, I still think about it every so often.
Getting back to today, I thought that's what my right eye problem was again, inflamed optic nerve, but it wasn't, instead it was a detached retina. I'm suppose to be off work for six weeks. My FMLA ends on Dec. 21. My vacation was to start Dec. 17 through Dec 24. So I don't know if I have to go back for those last three days of my vacation, or wait until Christmas Day to come back. I'll have to talk with my supervisor to see. I gave to doctor's office the FMLA papers yesterday morning, so they're suppose to fax it back over to Health and Wellness at the hospital I work at. They'll probably do this Monday or Tuesday, but I gotta make sure they get that done. I have 15 days to get that turned back in, and it starts count on the day of my leave. At this time, They're suppose to treat it like an absence until they get the paperwork.
Continued in comments...
SHAWNTHOR Blog (217)
I'm sure along with myself, most guys would like this.
