I spy with my little eye...

A floater that's driving me crazy.

I've had a floater in my line of sight for at least a couple of months now. It looks like a hair and it moves every time I move my eye. It's really noticeable in bright light and not so much when it's dark. I finally had enough and decided to go to the eye doctor to make sure that nothing more serious was going on with my vision. I haven't been to the eye doctor since I was a child, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.

I had my husband take me since I was informed ahead of time that they would be dilating my pupils, and I'd heard that you can't see a whole lot after that happens. Once I got there, they escorted me into a room where the technician (who was a little too cheery for my taste) informed me that they would be numbing my eyes so they could check the pressure. The numbing would be achieved through eye drops, which I knew I'd be facing at some point, and wasn't looking forward to. All I kept thinking about beforehand was that episode of Friends where Rachel has an eye infection and she goes to the eye doctor, and every time he tries to blow a puff of air in her eye, she pulls her head back.

If you've never had your eyes numbed, it's a very odd feeling. You can't feel a thing once it happens, but you suddenly feel very sleepy and can't keep your eyes open to save your life. It lasted for a good 20 minutes, and then she took me back into the exam room. I was finally starting to feel normal again when the doctor came in and said he was going to numb them again and then dilate them. Great. Once he did the exam, he informed me that I have a viscous detachment, which as he explained it, there's a gelatinous part behind your eye, and as we age, it can liquefy and parts of it can break loose, which explains the floater. He also explained there's nothing that can be done about it and it's basically my new little buddy, so I'd better get used to it. There's a chance that my brain will learn to ignore it or it may float away into another part of my eye and I won't see it, but that's only a possibility. I could see it there for the rest of my life.

Bummer.

He was pretty happy about how healthy my eyes were otherwise, and thankfully, I still have 20/20 vision in both eyes, so he said glasses were completely out of the question. Whew.

So thankfully I don't have a brain tumor, my eye isn't going to fall out and I don't have a wayward cat hair that made its way deep inside my eye.

Not that I was considering any of these possibilities before Friday afternoon.