My Injection Day

One of the joys of retirement is staying in PJs until breakfast. On injection day, I get up early (early for me) because I like to have my appointment as early as possible. Not "it’s still dark outside" early, but "sharing the road with the school buses” early.

At 7:45 AM, I tell my husband, "Half an hour, bakers.” Borrowed from the Great British Baking Show, it is our signal to get moving.

"Why? Where are we going?"

"My eye injection appointment," I reply. How could he forget? It is the one appointment I never forget.

My pre-injection routine

I wear comfy clothes and no makeup. Who wants eye drops ruining their mascara?

A pre-injection dose of naproxen sodium was once part of this routine. I stopped it when I realized that I no longer had post-injection pain.

In the waiting room

This month, my appointment is at 8:45 AM. I’m 1 of only 2 in the waiting room. The office has an early group. They start at 7:30 AM.

I use my credit card for the $5.00 copay, get the receipt, and pick up my phone. I silently thank Medicare and the Good Days Foundation for picking up the balance. While I’m still fumbling with my purse, the tech calls my name.

Routine questions and vision tests

After a short stay in the interior waiting room, I go to the first room. I am asked the routine questions. Any changes in medication? No. Any changes in your right eye? (That’s my good one.) No.

Then the vision test. With my right, I think I am reading farther down the chart than before, but the tech makes no comment. It takes a while to use my peripheral vision to find the largest E with my left one.

The pressure test and numbing drops

Next, numbing drops and the pressure test. I tell the tech that I read somewhere that it is a test for possibly developing glaucoma. He says it is a test for many things, and they don’t like to use the word "glaucoma." Oops. I should have asked what other things can be measured with this test.

At one point, he asks if I have diabetes without explaining why he's asking. Then, more drops and back to the waiting room.

As with almost every appointment, no one speaks to anyone. I really want to ask the man next to me why he's wearing jeans, boots, and a cowboy shirt with a necktie. It is Florida. No one asks about how you dress.

Imaging and more numbing

Next room. Another tech does the retinal imaging. The purpose of this is to see the current condition of the retina in each eye. More drops. Back to the waiting room.

Third room. Another drop. Doctor appears and reads the retina scans.

"No change. Stable."

That’s the best news of the day.

"Head back. Look at the ceiling."

He does a numbing injection, which I cannot feel.

The injection

Room 4. More drops. Antiseptic. The tiniest amount of Betadine. Some people are allergic to it. I am not.

Less than 5 minutes later, he is back. "Head back. Look at the ceiling." And then there’s the injection of the medication that will keep my body from producing the tiny blood vessels that can damage my retina and my vision.

My vision is a bit blurry immediately after the injection, so I stumble through the process of setting up my next appointment — 7 weeks from now, rather than the 6 weeks since the last injection.

We’re out the door and on the road 40 minutes after arrival.

Preparing myself for the effects of change

My husband drives, of course. We stop for breakfast. Then I go home and take a 3-hour nap. By the time I wake up, my vision is back to its pre-appointment self, and I'm back at my desk.

What is different from the last time? Not much. A much shorter waiting time. After more than 4 years of regular injections and a lot of research about my macular degeneration and living with low vision, I feel like an old pro.

Things can and will change. How or when, I do not know. The goal is to prepare myself to handle the emotional and physical effects that go with them.

I have tried to get all the details right. I hope this helps someone who is new to injection treatments for macular degeneration!