Retinal Detachment
During the evening of our first night in Colca Canyon, I was putting the boys to bed and I lost half my vision in my left eye. I went into our room and talked with Katie. We were in small town without a hospital and about 3 hours away from Arequipa. We were weighing what we could do. The caravan wasn't planning on getting back into Arequipa until the following evening. I decided I should call my life long friend who's a doctor. When I asked him what he thought, he replied sagely with his many years of education and experience, "If you can't see out of an eye, you should treat it as an emergency. Vision is kind of an important thing you would like to keep as you grow older." In the moment, I think I just answered, 'Ok, so you're saying I should find as quick as way to a hospital as I can?'. Sometime later, I had to laugh at myself a little. I probably didn't need to use my 'phone a friend' quite then to come to that conclusion. BTW, if you are in want of such a wise doctor, look him up here: David Deichert.
So, I went down to the front desk, got Rahul's (our guide) room number and woke him up. He helped me arrange a taxi first thing in the morning to take me back to Arequipa and get to an eye specialist. Both that night and the ensuing 3 hour ride back to Arequipa, my mind raced through the possibilities and the potential impact to our trip. I got to the first place and they checked out my eyes. The language barrier was a bit tough as the internet didn't work very well inside the building, so translate apps were out. There was 1 young woman that tried to translate the doctor's words the best she could. They had determined I needed to see a retina specialist. But, the one they liked was in Lima and thought I needed to rush to the airport to get there. I really didn't like the sounds of that. I then received a call from one of the people that worked at the travel service for the Colca Canyon trip, and she said she had another Dr. she trusted in a retina specialist place and she was sending a taxi to me. So, I opted for that. I thanked these folks for their help and recommendation and let them know I would try this other place. I was feeling a bit of despair, but didn't really want to rush off to Lima and get further from Katie and the boys.
When I arrived at the next place, it was much larger and had multiple people at the welcoming desk. As I was bringing up translating why I was there, a man walked right up and motioned me to follow him. He brought me upstairs into his office and had me sit down. He was the Doctor the woman on the phone told me about. He looked at my eye for a few minutes with some of his tools and assuredly said I had a detached retina and required surgery quickly. His certainty and the fact they could do the surgery there was some comfort. Later I met with the surgeon and he said he could give the surgery in 2 days and of 2 options I had: gas or silicon oil to be used to keep the retina attached while it healed. With gas, it would only be 1 surgery, but I would not be able to fly for 4-6 weeks. With silicon, I could fly in a week, but would need a 2nd surgery later to remove the silicon. I liked the idea of the silicon at first just because of our trip plans. But he let me know I could give him my preference the day of the surgery. When I got to the hotel we were staying at the night, Katie and the boys had arrived back into town and we discussed our options (and googled a bunch). After that, I thought I'd rather the docs do whatever was best for my eye regardless of the flying or not flying and we would just figure out the ramifications to our trip. Plus, eliminating a second surgery sounded better and better.
Once we got to my surgery, I explained to the surgeon to do whatever was best for my chances of recapturing my vision. They gave me some pills to relax and some gas to further relax(?). After a couple hours, the surgery was complete and we got the rundown. They had used oil as what we understood was the eye was torn enough that gas would not keep it as well. Also, the best I could hope for was 80% recovery in the eye. So, the only positive I took away was at least we could fly and keep on that schedule. But other than that, I was bummed out.
Oh and the next 10 days I needed to stay more or less face down to aid the healing of the retina.
