Did you know that January is Glaucoma Awareness Month? Well, neither did I until just recently. My mother has had glaucoma for years. She is on about a million drops. Plus, she’s had two cornea transplants. The first cornea seemed to be doing really well. Two years had passed with full acceptance and no problems. Then suddenly—BAM—an infection set in and she had to have emergency surgery to save her eye. The doc did another cornea transplant and although it didn’t correct her vision, it did save her entire eye. However, she can’t see very well out of it at all. Which is sad because she loves to read. The good news is that her other eye is fair and with the use of a lighted magnifying glass she is able to read her Bible and do her devotion each morning but that’s about it. Doing extensive reading is not possible. Plus it’s really messed with her depth-perception. Did I mention that glaucoma really sucks?
About a year ago, I went in for my regular eye exam. My doc says, “You have a hemorrhage in your eye.” WHAT??? SERIOUSLY?? “Yep,” he says, “and you’ve either had a silent stroke or you have what is known as normal or low tension glaucoma. You need to have your mom’s glaucoma doc look at it.” I couldn’t believe it. So I scheduled an appointment with my mom’s glaucoma doc and he confirmed what my eye doc had said.
I had no idea what that was. I only knew about my mom’s glaucoma and never even knew there were other types. So here’s the definition of what is called low-tension or normal-pressure glaucoma: in this type of glaucoma, the optic nerve is damaged even though the pressure in the eye is not very high. Doctors have no idea how this happens. So the very fact that I have an AWESOME eye doc who caught this, diagnosed it, and sent me to a glaucoma doc is amazing and I am truly blessed. We caught it early and have been treating it with drops at night.
The cause of this type of glaucoma is still unknown. The way my eye doc caught it was two-fold. I failed my field test and he saw the hemorrhage on the picture he took of my eye. I owe him a debt of gratitude!
So, January is National Glaucoma Awareness Month and I felt the need to put it out there because this is an awful sight-stealing disease. Some stats I pulled from the Glaucoma Research Foundation website is: There are currently 2.7 million people in the U.S. over the age of 40 (I’m one of them) who have glaucoma. The National Eye Institute projects the number will reach 4.2 million by 2030, which is a 58% increase. 60 million people worldwide have glaucoma. HOLY COW! The website said that experts estimate that half of those people don’t even know they have glaucoma.
We should all help raise awareness of this disease. It’s sad to know that (according to the GRF website) approximately 120,000 in the U.S. are blind from glaucoma. This is 9% to 12% of all cases of blindness.
I recommend that you post on your FB page that January is Glaucoma Awareness Month, talk to your family and friends about it, don’t hide the fact that you have it, and check out the GRF website at http://www.glaucoma.org to get all the info you’d ever want—then pass it on.
My mother and me a long, long, long time ago!
This is us now!
Glaucoma really sucks! PASS THAT ON TOO!! From my mother and me!!
