A Rare Bird

One Saturday, at the very end of April, when I was still pretty freshly pregnant, The Husband asked me to make an eye appointment for him.  (Word to the wise – most husband’s love it when they can treat you like their personal secretary... at least mine does).  I asked him if he could wait until Monday.  The Husband explained that his eyes had been bothering him for about a week and he needed a new prescription ASAP.   So, I made him an appointment at the Optometrist in the mall and sent him on his way.

I had a baby shower to go to that day (for my cousin).  When I finally got home later that afternoon I asked The Husband if he was able to get a new prescription.  He explained to me that the eye doctor wasn’t able to help him because there was something wrong with his actual eye, NOT his prescription.  The Optometrist made him an appointment with an on call Ophthalmologist.  In case there is anyone out there who has no idea what the difference is between an Ophthalmologist and an Optometrist… here is a brief run down:

Ophthalmologist = medical doctor (M.D.) who specializes in eye and vision care for the full spectrum of the eye

Optometrist = licensed health care professional (doctor of optometry, not an M.D.) who provides eye care services, such as prescribing glasses and contacts

So, The Husband had planned to meet with this on call Ophthalmologist around 5:00pm.  I was planning on sending him on his way by himself, but he asked me to join him.  As we’re driving to the doctor’s office The Husband (who was in the driver’s seat) was asking me things like “Can you read any of these street signs?” and “Can you tell if that light is red or green?”… It was at this point in time that I started to get nervous.

Let me first preface this by saying that I have never been to an Ophthalmologist, and I have only been to an Optometrist once in my life.  So, watching The Husband get an eye exam was kind of new and exciting for me to witness.

The doctor met us in front of his office.  He was very friendly and I immediately felt we were in good hands.  During the eye exam the doctor started flashing letters up on the screen for The Husband to read.  This part of the exam was hilarious and very sad at the same time.  These letters were HUGE, I mean they were GIGANTIC, and the poor Husband couldn’t read them.  At one point when one of the biggest letters was flashed on the screen all by itself The Husband said “Definitely an E”… it was an “M”.  I was struggling to hold back laughter.  I could tell The Husband was clearly frustrated.  I was also thanking my lucky stars that we had made it safely to the doctor’s office… a blind man had driven us there.

The doctor then put some red dye in The Husband’s eye and peered though his eyes with these funny little glasses and a magnifying glass.  I was really having a hard time stifling my giggles.  It just looked so funny, I felt so lucky to be viewing these events first hand… first class entertainment!

Finally the doc finished his exam.  “Well,” he said, in a very serious voice (with slightly dramatic undertones) “it looks like you have a swollen Optic nerve.”

Crickets.

I think The Husband and I were supposed to have a dramatic reaction at that point in time… but we had no idea what a swollen optic nerve was supposed to mean to us, let alone what the purpose of an optic nerve actually was (so it's a nerve that connects to the eye… so what?).

The doctor could obviously sense our lack of medical knowledge by our reaction.  So, he continued:

“You see, the optic nerve carries messages from the eye to the brain.  When the nerve is swollen, you are unable to see because those messages are unable to be sent properly.”

Ok… so he had a swollen optic nerve, nothing a little ice pack couldn’t fix, right?  Then the doc started dropping bombs on us:

“There are two reasons why you would have a swollen optic nerve.  Either there is an extreme amount of pressure in your brain caused by some sort of a mass, or you have Optic Neuritis.”

My jaw hit the floor on the “mass in the brain” part, little did I know that was the least of my worries.  The doc continued:

“Now, if it IS Optic Neuritis, that opens a whole other can of worms.  Optic Neuritis is most often caused by Multiple Sclerosis, but it could be caused by anything from Lupus, Lyme disease, West Nile Virus, Meningitis, Rubella, the list goes on and on, really.”

At this point the doc told us he had never seen a case like The Husband’s before and he needed to go look some things up in his books and on the internet for a bit.  He left us alone in the exam room. 

After a few minutes of silence, The Husband and I burst into laughter.  It was one of those “laugh or cry” moments.  We had cried way too much in the previous months… the laughing was therapeutic.

I told The Husband about his letter “E” misdiagnosis and we laughed even harder.  “I was guessing on everything else, but I could have sworn that was an E,” he laughed.

We settled down just in time for the doctor to come back in. 

“You are just a rare bird”, he told The Husband.  He used the term “rare bird” close to 10 times that day.  Truthfully I had never heard the term “rare bird” before, so this added to my urges to laugh again.

It was determined that The Husband needed an MRI to rule out a brain tumor, a spinal tap to rule out Multiple Sclerosis, and plenty of blood tests to rule out everything else.  The Husband was thrilled.

Something you should know about The Husband…. He hates hospitals.

"So, is this something we can schedule for Monday?" I asked.

"Oh no," the doc stated very emphatically, "this needs to be done immediately, if we wait until Monday, it could be too late."

The doc then told us the worst news of all:

“These tests may all come back negative… we may never know what is causing this.  I’m just hoping that we can treat it… and hopefully it won’t come back.”

With that we headed over to the hospital to begin a night full of fun in the Emergency Room.... all thanks to my "rare bird" of a husband.

To be continued…