Eye Problems?

Eye Problems?

I was thirteen years old, just a seventh grade kid. I was an honor student, an athlete, and a student council member. Never really had any history of medical problems, only a broken bone or two, nothing at all serious through my life.

One day in religion class, our teacher was lecturing and writing on the dry erase board. Religion class was always very easy no matter what age group or grade, so it got quite boring. This particular day was one of those boring days. So as my teacher was writing on the dry erase board I was day dreaming and thinking about what I was going to do when I got home. Then I began reading what was on the board, but I wasn’t really paying attention to exactly what it was I was reading. So I got bored and randomly closed one eye to read and then the other. I noticed my vision was not nearly the same in both my eyes. I turned to the girl next to me; Rachel was her name. I asked, “Can you see clearly with both of your eyes?”

She replied back to me, “Well… yeah!” as if I were joking.

I sat there and kept checking both eyes. Right and then left, over and over to make sure this was correct. I came out with the same result every time; that my right eye was definitely a lot worse than my left.

As I came home that day I told my mom of course what I had noticed. When I first told her she did not believe me. So it was time to test it out and prove I wasn’t making it up. She wrote with big letters on a piece of computer paper, and stood on the other side of the kitchen as I sat at the bar. I covered my right eye, and could read everything perfectly, all the words without hesitation. Then covered the left; this time however, I could not read it at all. We knew something wasn’t right, but didn’t know how to treat it at first. Do we go to the doctor right away, who do we tell, who can help? Those types of questions went through our heads all day.

About a week later I had practice for my travel baseball team. I hadn’t seen a doctor yet. I was always a good hitter as well as defender when it came to baseball. In fact in every sport I never had any noticeable vision problems. My coach, who happened to be my best friends’ dad, was giving soft toss. Soft toss is when somebody is on one knee and while on one side of you they underhand a ball for you to hit; a very easy, routine drill that we did at almost every practice. It was my turn and I was ready to hit. The first ball goes, I swung and missed. Then the second, third, fourth, I missed every single one. He looked at me and I looked at him with disbelief. I took a deep breath to settle down and clear my head. We soon started again, but with the same results missed every single one.

As one would guess my mom and I were in the eye doctors’ office within the next week. I took so many tests; I had never been to the Optometrist before. So we had to do everything that first visit. After not doing so well with the reading from a distance portion of the tests they had to take pictures of my eyes. Unfortunately the pictures did not turn out well for me. He had never seen anything like it; he had no idea what it was. He had told my mom and me that I would never be a pilot, or never be able to drive and possibly never be able to participate in athletics. This obviously freaked my mom out. I was worried but I told myself long before this had happened that no one or anything was going to bring me down and keep me down.

We traveled the entire state for the next few months looking, searching for an eye surgeon or Opthamologist, who would be willing to operate without worry or hesitation. Everyone we talked to would not do it. Imagine going to see the best of the best doctors and have them tell you they don’t know exactly what it is and they cannot help you.

In about three months time my mom had found a doctor in Cleveland, Ohio who seemed like he could help. So on to Cleveland we went. We finally get there and this hospital is very nice, The Cleveland Clinic it was called. As we walked in, it definitely boosted our spirits because it looked like a top of the line establishment. It is our turn to see the doctor, I cannot recall his name. We do all of the tests. It became routine for me, I found myself doing things they needed before they would ask because I had done it so many times before. After the tests he left to examine everything. He returned and regretfully told us he will not attempt the surgery because he is uncomfortable with it. He did not want to make a mistake because me being so young it could be a very fragile area of the eye. But all was not lost with this doctor. He recommended us to an Opthamologist near us. His name is Dr. Anthony Capone, the guys’ mentor. He tells us he is the best doctor in the country when it comes to dealing with these things.

We go see Dr. Capone a few weeks later. The hospital where he worked was in Beaumont. Beaumont is about two hours from where I live. He comes in to see us and of course we go through all the routine procedures. After everything he tells us exactly what it is. A condition called F.E.V.R, where a person has too many blood vessels in their eye. This causes blood to leak onto the eye creating a scar over it. On top of that scar blocking my vision I also had a detached retina. But he didn’t shy away from anything. He spoke directly to me and told me what he could do for me. I was one hundred percent comfortable with him and the overwhelming confidence and reassurance he gave me. I had seven eye surgeries with that man. He helped my vision increase immensely and I could not thank him enough. Dr. Capone uses my story, pictures, and medical history as examples for teaching about the disease overseas and in the United States.

I have very minor vision problems now. Although I do not have any depth perception, doctors have told me that I am just used to it so I compensate for it. They told me I would never play any kind of sport especially contact sports or a sport like baseball where one would obviously need exceptional depth perception and vision. They all said this, all but one Dr. Capone. I was a three sport Varsity athlete in the following sports, football, baseball, and basketball. I had All-League honors in each and was a three year lettermen, two time District Champion, two time Regional Champion and a League Champion, in the sport they said “I would not be able to excel in,” baseball. I am proud of this not because of the accolades but because I proved to myself what I can do and what others can do if they keep going in life with a positive attitude, and they surround themselves with good, positive people as well.

Myles Allen