Cyclopsitron

"Hey, Shandi, let me get the file on the next appointment if you would, please."

"Right here in my hand," she said matter-of-factly.

Shandi was an assistant to an optometrist, a job she had grown quite fond of over the years; good people, good pay. She was nicknamed "The Amazonian" as with her height she towered over all the other women in the office, especially in heels, but in reality was just slightly above average standing at 5'9". She had blonde hair past her shoulders, glistening blue eyes, big ol' glasses, and a desirable little extra in all the right places. She was the mother of a 7 year old daughter, comfortably living in the outskirts of suburbia.

Now that that's somewhat established, let me introduce myself. My name is Nick, and I have casually known Shandi for about 15 years. We had met in Algebra I in 9th grade. She was always a rather interesting person to say the least. Some would even go as far as calling her goofy and strange, but she definitely had character. However, nothing could have prepared anybody for the events that would take place following this day.

Back at the Optometry practice, Shandi was on her lunch break, sitting at her desk looking at her phone, same as any other day, and then it hit her. The vision in her right eye went completely black. Worried and not knowing what was going on, she went to tell her friend/manager, Mie.

"Mie, I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I can't see out of my right eye. It's just black. I'm kind of freaking out." Shandi tells her, attempting to stay calm.

"Well, that is a possible issue with an ocular migraine." Says Mie.

"No, this isnt right." Shandi assures her.

She sat there for a couple minutes trying to collect herself, then went to open her office door and ran into one of the doctors working there, and told her what's up.

"Do you see any shapes or outlines?" Dr. Amy asked.

"No, completely black."

She does a cover test, and nothing. Then spends a long time checking Shandi's pupils.

"We're gonna need an OCT on her nerve and macula." Dr. Amy says to one of the technicians. "And tell Dr. Bearden we're coming over."

They then walk over to a room where Dr. Bearden is waiting. He starts administering several tests. After a few minutes, another doctor, Dr. Bastian, comes in and checks out her eyes as well. After much deliberation, they all agree that she needs to go see Dr. Subong, ophthalmologist, retina specialist. Dr. Bearden calls him and says he'll drive her there.

"Dont worry about it, I'll drive her." Mie interjects, knowing Dr. Bearden is way past his shift and still has to pick up his kids.

Shandi was nervous, still not knowing what was going on, and shaking. She was calm, not crying, trying to convince herself it was all going to be okay. They arrived at Dr. Subong's office and they were expecting her and took her straight back.

One of the techs has Shandi breathe in and out of a paper bag while he gets things ready.

Dr Bearden shows up wanting to make sure everything is okay. Dr Subong comes in and they get right to work, holding her eye open and using a needle to pull out some fluids. Her eye pressure is so low now it doesn't even register.

"I want an angiogram." Dr Subong says.

"Am I going to get vision back in my eye?" Shandi asks.

"We're doing everything we possibly can, but it is unlikely."

This was not the answer she wanted to hear. At this point she was crying uncontrollably, rocking back and forth shaking, saying to herself over and over again "why is this happening?" Mie comforts her until she gets back to herself for a moment, then they all go to a new room.

"We're going to inject you with this yellow dye and take a series of pictures." The doctors tell her.

The injection makes her feel sicker than she already felt. She can't stop crying. The tech has to help her position her head, as she cant see the light in front of her effected eye. They take some pictures of both her eyes, but mostly her right. Now they go back to the first room. The doctor comes in and shows her the pictures, explaining what the problem is.

"Essentially it looks like there's an embolism that blocked the veins to your eye. This is called Central Retinal Vein Occlusion (CRVO). Since the veins are blocked, no oxygen is getting to your eye."

She cries more and more taking in the reality of the situation. Her vision in her right eye is gone forever. She can overhear the doctors talking.

"It doesn't make sense. She's so young, she has none of the risk factors."

"In all my years, I have never seen someone as young as her with such acute symptoms."

Dr Subong then tells her he'll send all the info to her primary care physician (PCP). He wants her to get an ultrasound and MRI, as there still has to be a reason this happened. Shandi then heads back to the waiting room with Mie and Dr Bearden, where she proceeds to call her mom.

"Oh hey hon- oh God what's wrong?"

Her mom went from cheerful to concerned very quickly as soon as she heard Shandi crying.

"Mom, please don't freak out."

"What's going on? Are you okay? Oh man." her mom frantically asks. Shandi tells her what happened and her mom goes into denial.

"There's treatments. You can get it back." But to no avail. She doesn't understand the severity. Shandi has Dr Bearden talk to her mom. Shandi was out of it; numb about the whole situation.

Before they left, Dr Bearden says to Shandi, "Take as much time off as you need. If you need a ride, help with your daughter, anything at all, you let me know." She thanked him and left back to the office with Mie. On the way she called her ex husband to see if he could take her daughter for the night. She was in no condition to handle anything for the time being.

When they arrived back at the office, Mie explained everything while Shandi broke down again. Dr Amy told Shandi if she needs anything to call her, same as Dr Bearden did. She was grateful to have such amazing employers.

Dr Amy says she doesn't want Shandi driving until she has gotten used to the change. Dr Bastian insists she go to the ER as they still didn't know the cause and wanted to make sure nothing else happened. Shandi wasn't feeling up to it at this point. She called her mom back, and she also coaxed her into going.

Now Shandi calls her best friend Tia, tells her what happened, and before she could even finish, Tia was running to her car and on her way, which was an hour drive. Mie drives Shandi to the ER and waits until Tia gets there, which she did in record time. They then both stayed and went in with her after triage.

Dr Amy showed up in the ER. She had some drops for Shandi, and wanted to tell them directly what happened. She also says she talked to Dr Bailey and that there might be an injection in that could help, but it might be too late. Shandi was overwhelmed with how much people really cared about her, and how they have gone above and beyond. She wished she could show them how much she appreciated it, but she was still in shock over the whole ordeal.

The ER doc comes in, Dr Amy explains everything again. He says he wants a cat scan of her head and neck. Dr Amy leaves and tells Shandi to keep them posted. Mie stays for as long as she can.

Shandi gets bloodwork done, urine sample, waits a bit. Radiologist comes in and tried to give her an IV, and misses the vein twice. After Shandi nearly breaks Tia's hand from the pain, a nurse tries the other arm and hits the vein all 3 times, but her veins keep blowing. Shandi asks for a break, and the nurse says just a minute or 2 as they are strapped for time. Another nurse comes and gets it in first try.

Shandi now gets wheeled away and does a regular cat scan, and a few more with iodine injected. A few minutes later the ER doc comes back saying the initial brain scan was clear. The doc mentions the injection Dr Amy had talked about, and says that the University of Washington is the only place that would do it, and that's if they would do it, as it was was very experimental and had risky side effects.

The ER doc comes back again after a few minutes, and says they did find something; fibromuscular dysplasia, a rare and typically genetic disorder, which caused the arteries in her neck to not form properly. Because of this, she is left more prone to bleeding, aneurysms, among other things. The ER doc agreed with the CRVO findings earlier at her work.

Shandi was now being admitted to the hospital. The doc wants a brain MRI, full body MRI, echocardiogram, and she needs to talk to a neurologist, vascular surgeon, ophthalmologist, and geneticist. There was nothing to do about her vision anymore. It was now just a matter of trying to keep anything else bad from happening.

It was mind-boggling. By the time she arrived in the ER up until this point, she had been seen by over a dozen people, and bombarded with questions. Eventually yet another doctor comes and reiterates what the ER doc had said, and she was officially admitted. He then told her she was the first CRVO and fibromuscular dysplasia case he had seen in his 13 years.

More nurses come and do different things, following stroke precedure. They pull countless tubes of blood from her IV, and she starts to get woozy. She asks if she can eat, hoping to wallow in a sea of junk food, but they say she can only have hospital food for now, and she needs to watch her salt intake.

A nurse comes in and says Tia can't stay if Shandi ends up sharing a room because of HIPAA (health information privacy). She told the nurse if Tia has to leave then she's leaving too. In the end she got her own room.

Everyone had been so nice. Several nurses were hanging out with her during her transition from the ER to the main hospital. Everyone talking about how crazy it was what happened to her.

"What are the odds you go blind working at an optometrist office?" Shandi joked, trying to keep it light hearted while dying inside.

She is now all set up in her room. Tia goes and gets food at Shandi's insistence. Now on her own, in silence for the first time, she can't stop thinking about everything. Why did you this happen? What is she going to do? How will she get used to this? How is she going to put makeup on? How will she shoot a gun? How will she look at things long without getting sick or dizzy? How does she deal with the blind spot? Is her eyelid going to droop? Is everyone going to know? What did she do wrong in her life for this to happen to her?

Her IV made her hydrated enough again to cry. She laid there and let the tears run freely. She hated it. She had woke up that morning perfectly fine, and now she was blind in one eye, and all this had happened.

Tia came back and talked to Shandi until Tia herself drifted asleep, but Shandi couldn't sleep. At 4:30 am a nurse comes in for another blood draw, but from her arm, not her IV. Her arms already bruised and pained from being poked 8 times earlier, so they draw from her hand. Waiting for the rest of the day to come, waiting for this to all be done. She just wants to go home.