#optic nerve

Does it read as mentally unwell for me to be talking to myself about the logistics of a man stabbing himself through the eye in the middle of a forest in victorian france? For visualization purposes, of course.

oooooh okay. the patient with the eye stroke hits close to home. a few years ago i had sudden onset vision loss in my left eye and it turned out my optic nerve sheath was severely swollen and was cutting off blood flow to areas of my left eye. even with early intervention, i still have a scotoma (area of blindness) that takes up most of my left peripheral view - and that was a *good* outcome. it was genuinely terrifying and i don't think we talk enough about how important it is to get any loss of vision checked out IMMEDIATELY, because of how critical those vascular pathways are and how disastrous an untreated vascular incident can be there. tl;dr: always take vision loss seriously and never skip your annual eye exam, you never know what might get caught early that way. even some brain tumors have been caught first on an optic scan before they become symptomatic.