I spy with my crimson eye

You know when people sarcastically say "I'd rather get a needle in my eye"? Well that's how I started my holidays. Now look at me...

Last time I wrote, I was getting hyperbaric treatments after a clot caused a stroke in my retina.

But when I went back to my opthalmologist for a check-up, the blight on my retina was spreading. And there was some cloudiness in my vision too.

That's a clear sign of an infection. So in all likelihood I never had a clot, instead I have some sort of disease in my eye which caused the stroke and is now spreading.

But the specialist has never seen anything like it. There are a few bugs that attack the retina, but they don't present like this. He's sent my scans out to his experts and they all say the same thing: it's a medical mystery.

So they arranged a biopsy. Which means they gave me happy-juice and stuck a needle in my eye, extracting some fluid for testing. A great way to start my time off work!

All the blood around my eye in that picture is just eyeball bruising from a needle poke. It doesn't hurt at all and should fade in the next three weeks.

Earlier this week we were waiting for the lab results to come back, so we could target the infection with the right drugs.

But then my blind spot grew bigger. It's a bit frightening, to be frank. It's not in my central vision yet, but it's getting close.

I told my opthalmologist and we re-did my peripheral vision test, which uses this thing.

You stick your eye on the little circle in the middle. The panel at the back flashes these tiny individual lights and you press a button each time you see one. At the end you get a map of your visual field.

My map is like the start of book two in a fantasy trilogy, where the blackness spreads across the land.

So we can't wait to treat this.

They've put me on the strongest antibiotics they can get, while they try to import the super-strong stuff into the state. My opthalmologist almost never needs to prescribe it, so he's put me into the care of an infectious diseases expert, who uses this sort of medication much more often and can help me manage the potential side effects.

But right now I wait.

For better medication. For an expert to look at the MRI scan I just had. And for those bloody lab results from my biopsy!

Here's the kicker: if those lab results aren't conclusive, they have to do a much more intrusive biopsy, all the way to the retina.

And I'd rather not get another needle in my eye.