Optomap

Left: I went to the optometrist today, and they said "grab onto the handhold and look into this machine...."

Left: Ooooh, this is cool! It looks like some kind of high-tech mammogram, but in fact it is a picture of my right retina.

In 1994, I had a retinal detachment in the left eye. First, they put a silicone rubber band around my left eyeball, in order to squeeze it more-elongate, so the detached portion of the retina and the back of the eyeball would be brought closer together. (The silicone rubber band is still there, and I can sometimes feel its presence when I first wake up in the morning.) Then they reattached the retina by dabbing liquid nitrogen on the outside of my eyeball in order to freeze-tack the retina back into place.

I remember that day pretty well. They gave me truth serum (sodium pentothal) to put me under. When I woke up, surgery had just finished and everyone in the operating room was laughing their heads off. I asked, "What's so funny?" They replied, "Oh, nothing!" Then they laughed some more....

The right retina looked a little thin and a little weak, so a week later Dr. Salzano grabbed his laser, and in 20 blinding minutes flashed 500 light pulses onto the right retina to weld it more-firmly onto the back of the eyeball.

In this photo, the optometrist noted scarring on the periphery of the right retina, which probably came from the 1994 laser surgery.