A Show of Hands, Please
After all these years on God’s green earth, I thought I had heard of most major medical issues, at least in passing. That was before my Wife’s rather serious bout with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo last year. A condition that saw us end up in the emergency room of our local hospital. Thankfully her stay lasted only one day, and she has not had any reoccurrences.
Bette Davis said it best, “getting old is not for sissies”. Meniscus surgery, emergency gallbladder removal and, the now infamous angiogram, see “The One Test I Really Didn’t want to Fail”, followed in a much too quick succession.
So, I’ve become a bit paranoid, or possibly a bit of a hypochondriac. But I really didn’t think I was schizophrenic, until last week. I was sitting comfortably at my desk at work and had just finished a conversation with an associate when suddenly, out of the corner of my left eye I saw a line of stars in the shape of a “less than” symbol ( < ). They were incredibly vivid, and they were now joined by flickering lights, as if at a carnival. I blinked, they moved, all in unison as if on a string, the lights grew brighter and then faded. I blinked again and again, although the stars moved they kept coming back, now growing larger, then smaller. I called another associate over and explained I was having some type of attack, and, I was nearing a full-scale panic attack by this point.
My associate is far younger and her Father recently suffered a stroke and so her concern nearly mirrored my own. “Do you have any pain in your arms or legs”, “can you move your arms and legs”, “is your speech slurred”, “your face looks normal”. I’m not a genius but her thoughts were similar to what I was thinking, am I having a stroke? We called my Wife who arrived at the office shortly thereafter to take me to the emergency room. While waiting for my Wife, the stars dimmed, the lights flickered, faded, and then everything was gone. I felt normal, although shaken.
Given I had no other stroke symptoms and the event was strictly with my left eye we called the Ophthalmologist. The doctor’s office asked several questions, looking for detached retina symptoms, (I have heard of a detached retina), and they suggested I come in immediately.
I arrived at the eye doctor’s office to a full waiting room. When I was called in after a very short wait I knew they were concerned. I was taken into an examination room and spoke to the Physician’s Assistant and related my symptoms. Her response floored me, “I am not a Doctor, but can tell you that what you experienced was a retinal migraine”. A what? A retinal migraine!
I am one of those very fortunate people who never have headaches, and I have never experienced a migraine. I have had several really nasty self-induced headaches on a few mornings after, so can empathize with those that do. As a result, I was totally unfamiliar with migraine auras.
People were surprised when I showed up at the office the next day. I work with some intelligent people, and we operate in the health and fitness space, and yet only one person had ever heard of a retinal migraine. Who knew?
Should I ever encounter another episode I plan to try to sit back and enjoy the show. Heck, people used to pay good money for drugs to experience something like that.
Anyway, a show of hands, please, how many of you have heard of a retinal migraine before reading this post?
