Perfluorocarbon

I said there would be a picture last night and today I have that picture.    Can I take a moment to complain about getting a picture of a picture without getting a shadow on the original picture?    Scan the picture, you say?   I’ve tried that and while it fixes the shadow and light issue, there is a resolution problem.    My phone camera today makes my printer/scanner look like a toddler making a copy of a picture out of Cheerios.    But I managed it by standing at a strange angle with several lights on at once.  When I walked over to my computer, through the power of the Cloud, the picture was waiting for me, which is super cool.

Okay, so what does the picture show?   Let’s go back to a picture from December of this past year for comparison.   In the picture below, you see white folds with red lines in them and a dark orange, cloudy background.   The folds of white are the retina folded into the center of the eye space.   The red lines are blood vessels, which means the retina is still getting blood flow.   The dim orange area is cloudy, indicating inflammation.   This is not a good, ‘orange reflex’ (otherwise known as ‘red eye’ caught in pictures).

Let’s compare to the picture from yesterday.   Look at the bright orange/red areas.   This is an attached retina.   Don’t worry about the darker area on the right side, that’s just the angle of the camera and light.  Look at how clear the eye appears.   There is no inflammation.   And this is the cool part, do you see what looks like a big bubble on the left side?   That’s the heavy substance, Perfluorocarbon or PFO, that’s been rolling around in my daughter’s eye, helping to flatten the retina down since December.    

This afternoon I hope to get lenses back for my daughter’s glasses.   I’ll let you know tomorrow how that goes, but for now I’m just going to look at the picture of my daughter’s attached retina and take a big sigh of relief.

The Big Boy Update:  My daughter told my son she and he got presents on her trip.   They had bought small Dori and Marlin plush characters from the movie Finding Nemo.   My son was petulant at first, saying they were “girls toys” but by the time he was ready to go to school he was holding on to them in the back seat, saying he couldn’t put his seat belt on because his hands were full.  We listened to stories from the movie Finding Nemo all the way to school.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   This morning as my daughter was getting dressed I heard her start singing, “Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming.   Hey—why are you following me?”   You don’t suppose she was watching Finding Nemo on the trip, do you?  Both my daughter and son are looking forward to the upcoming sequel, Finding Dori.