Narrated by Ms. Renjini Madhavan, our Senior Optometrist
There are many reasons to thank God; but when I said this "Thank God," I felt I had never meant it more in a long time! Besides being happy to be a part of the Computer Vision Clinic, I felt great to be in a place where the rule was- no examination should be incomplete! But for this ideal of Sankara Nethralaya, one would have missed a disastrous diagnosis for sure!!
Now before one wonders what I’m talking about, let me explain.
I was having a few of our computer user patients turning up for their routine examination. Ideally one would not expect something too serious or life threatening at the evaluation stage in the Computer Vision Clinic. The Computer Vision Clinic is meant for all those computer users who have had an eye examination and have found the health of their eyes absolutely fine but are still not at ease at work and for those patients who want to see if there is anything wrong with the way their eye works while they are at their workstations.
Like any other person working for long hours in front of a computer monitor, they were in for surprises on how their eye worked. Most of them had 100% good vision but the muscles in the eye were not in any state to take up a lot of work, or their tears were not protecting their eyes enough. The way they used their work setup was also, to their surprise, not too good! That was about all that could be wrong.
But this one 33 year old who came in was a lot different. He complained of occasional blurring of vision, more so for the last 15 days, especially when he looked to the right. But the blurring was of no concern at the Computer Vision Clinic as most of the patients with eyestrain had this problem at least at an early stage. The patient reported of having prominent eyeballs since childhood. His general health was also reported as normal. So the routine testing process continued.
His uncorrected visual acuity was 6/6, N6. On retinoscopy, there was a small blurring of the hyperopic reflex in his right eye which was not too common. So I decided to evaluate the inside of the eye before proceeding with testing the muscles of the eye. The anterior segment of the eye looked normal, the pupils reacted normally, and the intra ocular pressures were normal too. His color vision was also normal. The fundus was what looked troublesome. The optic discs looked edematous (right eye greater than the left eye) and this was something we had to investigate. The patient was immediately referred to an ophthalmologist.
The ophthalmologist confirmed the diagnosis and also noted nerve fiber layer swelling. He was referred for an immediate Brain CT Scan. The patient reported the following day that the CT report showed a Space Occupying Lesion in the Posterior Fossa on the right, resulting in an obstructive hydrocephalus cerebellar astrocytoma. He was immediately referred to a neurosurgeon and advised a review after treatment for a visual field evaluation.
The patient went through a left sided ventriculo peritoneal shunt and right sub-occipital craniectomy and an excision of the tumor two days after our referral. The patient returned two months later with tear filled eyes and thanked us for having relieved him of the strain and trouble he had been suffering for a year.
Testing showed an uncorrected vision of 6/6 in both eyes. The field test as advised showed a minimally enlarged blind spot in both the eyes. He was advised to be under the care of a neurologist. He was returning to normal life thankful of his luck and the treatment he had received!
Thank God he had decided to get an eye evaluation for eyestrain and in turn had a discovery which, if it had been undetected, might just have been fatal.
Thank God!
