Fund Nik's Journey to Restore His Sight

I'm Nik, I'm 29 & have been suffering with a retinal detachment since the beginning of the year which can causes blindness if

left untreated, it requires an emergency operation to fix.

I live with my parents that's been helping me with everything,

but It's gonna be extremely hard between them driving around with one vehicle, working, taking care of the pets, my

grandmother and me while I'm in recovery.

My girlfriend was a homecare nurse for years for her grandmother till she passed away last year, but she lives in California. She'd be perfect, but I'd need funds for that as well as all the medical bills.

My mental health has been spiraling downward for weeks & I'm trying everything I can to keep it together & try to figure everything out.

I've been dealing with the detachment since as early as around January 15th when I noticed after coming home

from a walk in the morning. When I walked back inside,

there was a bright/missing space in my upper left peripheral in my right eye, almost as if my eye was still recovering from the exposure of the sun. I couldn't see my hand or fingers in the affected area.

It would come & go after I'd sleep, making it seem like my vision is perfectly fine unless it was too dark or too bright,

all accompanied by light flashes in my peripheral.

Right away after searching online,

all my symptoms pointed me in the direction of Retinal Detachment. I was obsessed & panicking looking up anything detachment related & my family & I eventually thought

that's probably not what it is, I've had it for months & it didn't seem to progress. The percentage of a detachment is so low, we thought it could be a visual migraine, temporary sun blindness or a scotoma. I watched videos on what it could be, waited, took painkillers, nothing worked.

My mom started doing all the legwork to help me get cheap health insurance because I've been unemployed,

looking for remote work for months.

My family only has one truck to balance between everything between their jobs & now my medical issues.

It took months to get the ball rolling.

I wasn't eligible for Medicaid, but eventually someone pushed us towards Cigna & that was the best we could find.

We book an appointment months in advance at the

Advanced Eye Center in Gainesville, GA.

They were very good & accommodating.

They said they hope it's retinoschisis which mimics a detachment, and that I have a tiny hole in my eye that needs to be repaired. They wanted to refer me to an ophthalmologist

that takes my Cigna insurance to look at it & treat it.

Originally, we thought this place would diagnose & treat.

They provided two options, one in Smyrna, GA,

the other in Athens. Both over an hour away.

They pushed us towards Athens first, we chose Smyrna since it's a little closer. Bad choice.

The doctor gave me some hope.

He said he may be able to save me a trip to the operating room, to lay on my right side & come back a week later.

About 80% of that week, I took the laying on my right side to heart since he didn't specify I only need to sleep on my side & I have serious medical anxiety, so I really tried to avoid surgery.

A week rolls by & he tells me I need a scleral buckle.

He started to contradict himself all while having a bad bedside manner. He dropped the bad news grenade in my lap, asked if I had any questions, I said "many", he said ok,

he'll give us time to decide & walked out of the room. Great.

I was moved to another room to sign papers that seemingly reserve me to get surgery within 30 days & if I don't by then,

I'll have to redo all the paperwork.

He shows up at the doorway of the room, "got any questions" again, "yeah, many". He tells us to call his assistant for any questions & they'll get back to us within 24-48 hours.

I asked if a second opinion would make any difference, his response, "No".

By this point, all this completely destroyed me.

That was the final nail in the coffin, no hope to avoid a serious surgery. Up to that moment, I had been reading several articles, posts, research papers & even groups of people

and their experiences with all the different types of operations including the scleral buckle which I'm terrified of.

Since then, my anxiety & depression has been otherworldly. Doing anything has been really tough for me mentally.

My mom called them back multiple times & left them voice mails, they never called me back.

Hypothetically if I wanted those people to do the surgery on me, I'd be dead in the water, they don't care.

That left me with opinion #2, going to Athens.

This doctor was much better, had more tools & technology to his disposal, answered some of my questions,

said it's always important to be comfortable & get a second opinion, so he's the one for the job.

He actually checked both of my eyes..

turns out I have lattice degeneration in both eyes.

For those that don't know, that can cause a detachment & chances are, that's what caused it in my right eye.

Had I listened to the first doctor & jumped right into surgery

with him & not gotten a second opinion, I'd have never known.

Now I have a hanging clock over my good eye & for all I know, I'll have to go through all this all over again in my left eye.

The surgery on my right eye is currently scheduled for July 9th. He also wants to laser my left eye sometime after then.

Meanwhile we're running our only vehicle in the ground,

every week putting more mileage on the truck & have had to replace parts on it multiple times in just the last week alone.

I even had to postpone my first appointment with the second

doctor in Athens because the truck didn't start after repairs & now I'm worried this is gonna happen the day of my surgery,

so we're going to try to stay at a hotel after the surgery so they can do a check up the next day & then drive back home.

It's hard to handle. I just wanna be normal & happy again.

I can't believe all this is happening, it's unreal.

I'm worried I'll lose the current good vision I have and can't go back to enjoying simple things I love like

reading, watching movies or playing video games.

I've done all I could & at this point have to leave it in God's hands. I've prayed as hard as I could, my anxiety & stress is the worst its ever been. It feels like I've been losing it and my girlfriend can't even be with me to help me through it all.

All money will be used towards medical bills & transportation.

If you can't donate, please share it around & keep me in your prayers. Thankyou.

Edit: My dad ended up having an emergency & is currently in the hospital. My surgery has been pushed back a week minimum to avoid any complications or getting sick while in recovery.

-Nik

Update: I got the surgery on July 16th & been healing since.

It's slowly looking better, but my vision is pretty bad & I've got a long way to go. I'm not sure when my laser procedure on my left eye is, we're playing it by ear as my checkup will be in a few weeks.

This was I wanna say the 21st

And this is the 29th, It's a lot more red if I show what's not visible, but a lot better than what it was, that's for sure.

Thank you to all those who've donated.