Woman grateful for retinal laser treatment
Toni Smith has had eye issues all her life, but her current healthcare journey began three years ago on a beautiful summer day, when she and husband, Gary, were planning a trip up-Island to a friend’s cabin.
Things changed in an instant with an ophthalmologist appointment bringing the news she was facing permanent eye damage.
The situation began when her optometrist discovered a tear in her retina — which turned out to be related to her extreme nearsightedness — along with several areas in both eyes where more tears were possible.
“It kind of threw me down a path that I’m still dealing with,” Smith said.
Her family doctor confirmed the severity of her condition and sent her to the ophthalmologist, who told her she had to have surgery right away.
Smith said the thought of emergency eye surgery was frightening.
“It’s just not that much fun and it’s scary, and thank heaven for the equipment that we have and the doctors that we have here in Victoria.”
A retinal laser was used on her by Dr. Murray Erasmus.
“If I had not had that equipment available to me right then and there, the retina could have detached and I could have gone blind,” she said. “Once they fully detach it becomes much more difficult to save the sight.”
Despite it all, she was tended to quickly and able to make the
trip to the cabin.
“It was bizarre to me that all of that happened, all on a Friday, and we were actually able to go on that trip,” she said. “That’s how incredibly good this is, that they can fix you up like that and then you can carry on.”
The talk about her retinas
— the membrane on the inner surface of the back of the eye — was new to her, Smith said
“When I learned how to crawl I was crawling straight into walls, so I was born with bad eyesight,” she said. “I always had issues with my eyes and things but I never really knew much about the retina stuff.”
Retinas change over time, said the 56-year-old.
“It’s just they degenerate with age, so as I’ve gotten older then the retinas thin,” Smith said.
“I honestly didn’t know that I had to watch this until this happened.”
One clue turned out to be that she was determined, about 10 years ago, not to be a candidate for a Lasik procedure, which would have allowed her to stop using glasses and contacts. She was told there was not enough tissue with her retinas.
“I thought: ‘That was disappointing,’ but still it didn’t register with me at all that there was
any impending issue.”
The retinal laser has been a godsend for her, Smith said.
“I can’t be thankful enough for that being available to me and the doctors basically dropping everything to make sure my eye got fixed,” she said.
“It was incredible the great care I got.”
Her procedures have had a cumulative effect.
“After all of the surgeries that I have had, I am left with a lot of flashing and spots that kind of float in front of my eyes,” Smith said.
“It becomes a little more difficult for me to tell when things are really bad or not, so I have to get them checked regularly.
“It’s something, unfortunately, I have to live with and be worried about.”
Her latest surgery was on Wednesday.
The region’s retinal laser, which doctors use to perform up to 25 laser treatments a week on people such as Smith, is aging and needs to be replaced.
One of the many goals of the Victoria Hospitals Foundation’s Emerging Stronger Campaign is to fund a new retinal laser at a cost of $159,000, which means the current unit can be used as a backup.
That unit is 15 years old and has no backup itself in case it runs into problems.
“The retina machine that the foundation is buying is so necessary,” Smith said. “How fantastic is that to have two machines?”
She explained that the current technology can be “uncomfortable and not pleasant” for patients.
“This new machine makes things certainly easier,” Smith said. “The downtime is minimal, as well, with it, which is amazing to me.”
To donate to Emerge Stronger go to victoriahf.ca or call 250-519-1750.