Earl's eyes

Hi, I'm Earl. I was hoping never to have to do one of these again.

I'm a freelance podcaster, video editor, and occasional graphic designer. I went 100% freelance last December when I was abruptly laid off from my website-maintenance-and-occasional-graphic-design day job. It's been a bit of a rough year but I've been able to (mostly) hold my own with my strange collision of creative and technical skill sets and my plucky tenacity. Well, okay, plucky tenacity is probably pushing it a bit. I'm just trying not to give up.

All of my skills, however, hinge on being able to see. Yes, even podcasting. You have to be able to read your notes and any source material behind them. You have to be able to use visual tools to edit audio. And it goes without saying that you have to be able to see to edit video and do graphic design.

So, perversely, I've spent the majority of this year having one hell of a hard time seeing anything.

In late April, I noticed my vision was getting blurry and my eyes were experiencing a lot of discomfort. I've had a higher-than-normal number of bouts with pink eye in the past 2-3 years, so I thought "oh no, not again". Went to a walk-in clinic, and got immediately referred to an ophthalmologist at the Eye Center in Fayetteville. This wasn't just a case of pink eye. This was pretty much the world's worst industrial-strength case of pink eye. Here are some antibiotic eyedrops.

And they worked pretty well. Most of the discomfort was gone. My vision was clearing up. We're on the off-ramp, speeding away from this problem, right? But this is where I ran into the first of many problems with the Eye Center. They don't do refills. I probably just needed another week of 3 drops in each eye a day to have this thing beat. But they refused to do a refill. Predictably, the problem grew worse again and reset itself to where it was in late April. I went back in. Started over again. This time with refills. But I had to call in and justify every refill of antibiotic eyedrops with the ladies at the front desk. They'd always tell me "the triage team" would call me back. The triage team has never called me back. Does the triage team exist?

The treatment was start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. The stops were sometimes a gap of half a week. Totally predictable result? Whatever infection this is has now built up a resistance to the antibiotics. (I really can't recommend the Eye Center, by the way. They don't seem to be set up for problems that deviate from the can-we-upsell-you-on-LASIK-and-contacts script.)

And, in August, new problem: the state of Arkansas has rescinded my insurance coverage due to a procedural daisy chain of requests for documents that don't exist. While I'm trying to get that resolved as best I can with compromised vision and dealing with an understaffed state agency that's currently swamped with such requests, I can't put off treatment any longer because of it.

As of right now, I have no real treatment regimen for my eyes. I have ice packs and refrigerated masks that I wear regularly (see photo above, taken in July). I douse my eyes in eyewash cups of, basically, ice water. That buys me a couple of minutes of clarity and comfort. But then I have to do it again - literally, rinse and repeat, the entire time I'm awake. The eyewash cups are regularly taken out of rotation and washed. And this is all I'm capable of doing on my own. Artificial tears and over-the-counter pink eye remedies are already ineffective. I have major work projects looming immediately in front of me that are necessary to me keeping a roof over my head. And I'm hoping I can continue doing that work. It's scary. (If you've been in any online meetings with me in the past few months and have been wondering why I'm not "on camera" anymore, this is why.)

Here's where this all gets as fuzzy as my vision. I don't know how much this is going to cost. My immediate goals are:

1. Get a referral to a specialist who can actually tackle the problem, whether that means Washington Regional, UAMS, whatever.

2. Get that treatment. And keep in mind, somewhere between not having a vehicle and not being able to see consistently well, I'm not driving right now. I'm having to get a ride to and from every appointment. That's an added cost.

3. Get whatever's prescribed, or have whatever procedure needs to be done, to take care of a problem that seems like it should've been gone by the end of May.

4. Don't panic. (When you wake up and you're barely able to see, this part's harder than you might think.)

I don't know what this is going to cost, but to give you an idea, I've had to repeatedly reschedule my August appointment from the beginning of the month to the end of it, because I could afford to pay for neither the full cost of the office visit out-of-pocket, nor the ride to and from that office visit that I couldn't afford. It's all going to rack up pretty fast. The amount I've somewhat arbitrarily chosen for this Gofundme is probably lowballing it, and probably by a lot - that's probably a handful of office visits and the accompanying transport costs. The amount I need may be revised as I get more information. But I have to get started on this. It's a very pressing problem that needs more than ice water thrown at it. It's not just that my eyesight is compromised, but the pain has become fairly constant.

I have resisted, second-guessed, and hesitated repeatedly on the idea of starting a Gofundme for this. A couple of people have helpfully tapped me on the shoulder in the past few years to tell me "hey, enough Gofundme." And I feel that, I really do. I've taken great pride, since 2020, in not being a burden to anyone else. But at this point, realistically, crowdfunding is my only option.

Any and all help is appreciated. I hope to be able to see well enough to keep working. I hope to be able to see my kids graduate. Heck, maybe I can even see well enough to gather some adventurous souls and embark on an expedition to find the elusive triage team someday. But for now I'd settle for being able to see what's in front of me without the constant pain.