I was diagnosed at 1 p.m. and told “we have to operate today”. Once doctors explained the urgency, I dropped the idea of a second opinion. At 6 I was on the operating table, and by 10 that evening I was home. Who knew medicine could move that fast?

The need for speed

The speed, I learned, was necessary. Unlike many eye conditions such as cataracts, a retinal detachment is fast-moving. If it’s caught quickly, you have a chance of keeping your eyesight virtually intact. Wait too long and you’re looking at blur city, maybe near blindness in the affected eye. Nasrallah, the specialist who stuck sharp shiny objects into my eye, acknowledges that there’s an information gap. “There’s no awareness that flashes and floaters are to be taken seriously,” he says. “We don’t publicise it enough.”

What’s more, most people who have flashes and floaters are not in a retina emergency, says Sharon Solomon, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. “But if you never had floaters and wake up one morning and you have 20 new floaters, that’s concerning.” Because retinal detachment causes no pain, too many people ignore their symptoms, hoping they’ll go away, says Julia Haller, who heads Philadelphia’s Wills Eye Center. Others don’t get prompt care because they lack insurance or access to an eye surgery center, or because medical gatekeepers don’t recognise the need for quick action.

Patients with a detached macula (the central part of the retina, which gives us sharp, detailed vision) who are treated within a week have a 75 per cent chance of retaining 20-70 vision or better (good enough to drive a car with restrictions), Solomon says. After a week, their chances drop to 50 per cent.

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