My son has always been a bit of a hypochondriac so, at 16, when he told me he was seeing spots in front of his eyes, I didn’t believe him.
“That only happens in cartoons.” I said.
But the next day he woke up and half of one eye was solid red. We were living in Canada at the time and didn’t have a regular doctor. That’s another story for another time.
I told my son to make an appointment with a doctor. “Just find one in the phone book.” I told him. And I left for work.
When I came home that evening, I asked about his doctor visit. He said the doctor told him he hit himself very hard on the side of the head.
“That’s ridiculous. Even if you were asleep and fell out of bed, hitting the side of your head hard enough to cause damage in your eye, you’d wake up. Don’t you think? And you’d definitely remember if you were awake. Make an appointment with an eye doctor tomorrow.” I responded.
The next evening when I came home from work, my son was in the living room reading a newspaper with a magnifying glass. “What happened?” I asked, “What’s wrong with your eye?”
He said the doctor didn’t tell him, but she gave him drops to relax his eyes. “But I can’t see now.” he said.
Make another appointment with a different eye doctor for tomorrow evening if you can. I want to go with you.
And we went.
I waited in the waiting room as the doctor who examined him kept inviting every other doctor in the practice to come into his office to check out my son’s eyes. When the three ring circus was over, I asked what was going on and what was wrong with him.
The doctor responded that he couldn’t tell me anything because by Canadian law a sixteen year old is entitled to privacy. I was fuming inside. Canada is a beautiful country but some things were unacceptable to me. I’m his mother. Shouldn’t he be able to waive that right to privacy if he wants to? But I didn’t ask that. I said, “Well, have you told him what’s wrong then?”
“No. He’ll need to make another appointment.” was his reply. “Um, no, he doesn’t. We’ll find another doctor” I shot back. He begged me not to leave without making another appointment. We left.
At doctor number four, I was allowed in the exam room. The doctor looked shocked, or at least very concerned, but refused to tell us what the problem was.
The next day at work, an older gentleman asked how the lad was just as a courtesy. He didn’t know anything about my son’s eye problem.
I went off on him (poor guy). I ranted about the quality of care. “If this is socialized medicine, you can keep it!” I yelled. “My son has a problem with his eyes and no one will tell us what’s wrong or offer treatment and he’s seen four doctors so far. I don’t know what to do!”
He interrupted my rant, “I know someone who might be able to help. Let me call her and get back to you.”
I thanked him and apologized for yelling. I never yelled at him before, and it wasn’t really at him, but he was used to my often blunt Jersey-speak and didn’t seem to take offense.
He did know someone, and she got an appointment with a specialist at a local hospital.
He was quite a character; a short stocky man with thick dark glasses matching his thick dark hair, scooting around on a small round chair on wheels. He had no qualms about telling us what was happening.
He even drew a picture to explain it. Two circles for eyes. And then he took his pencil and hit the circles multiple times. He said, “Your son has acute bi-lateral corio-retinitis. It’s as if they were shot with a shotgun. There are cuts all over his eyes and when they heal, they scar. The scars are the spots he’s seeing. I’ll have to send him for further testing to determine the cause. It could be fungal, or bacterial or viral and if I treat it for the wrong cause I could do more damage than good.” He didn’t tell us that he could go blind.
My son went for the tests. At his follow-up visit the doctor told him the attack had stopped. So we think it was viral and the virus ran its course. At a further follow-up, the doctor seemed amazed and said, “Your eyes are scarred everywhere except where it affects your vision! I was concerned about a particular spot in your line of sight but it seems to have receded. I don’t understand it.”
“I do,” my son replied, “Everyone in my church was praying for me.”