Tuesday, August 14, 2007

No dilating drops!

Today was back to the eye doctor, for a visual field test and photos of my optical nerves. The visual field test was sort of the equivalent of a hearing test where you put your hand up to show you heard the ping. You do one eye at a time, with a plastic patch covering the other one. You stare into a yellow light at the back of a space-age-looking bowl. There are flashes in your peripheral vision, some so faint as to make you think you imagined them, and you press a button each time you see one. Repeat on other side.

This happens in a darkened room, and the good news was that my eyes were dilated enough just from this process that I didn't need drops for the photo.

I now know what the insides of my eyes look like. They are orange-pink, veined, with a darker spot in each. They have a fetal look about them, actually. They don't look much like anything capable of perception.

What a strange thing a body is.

Anyone else have encounters with their insides they want to share?

4 comments:

Julia said...

My ovaries have "strings of pearls" on them. Those are in fact folicles that never matured from all the years of unchecked PCOS. I very much dislike that view for what it represents-- years of no diagnosis and "there-there, take BC pills and don't call us in the morning."

I imagine the inside of an eye is a weirder thing, though.

S. said...

Julia, my other association with bodies and strings of pearls is the way a fetal spine can appear on an ultrasound, so this image grabbed me.

I am hoping for this cycle with you.

Magpie said...

I've had that picture taken of the inside of my eye - it's quite beautiful actually.

After I had a laparoscopy to look at my female parts, the doctor showed me the photos from the procedure. The thing that stood out was my LIVER. There it was, the edge of the liver, and it looked just like...a liver. So odd to see it there, and really recognize it.

S. said...

Yes, it is beautiful! The other thing it reminded me of is images of nebulae.

I like it that a liver would look just like a liver. Livers seem so straightforwardly functional to me!