Sight-saving eye surgery for Stephen Roy
Donation protected
Hello, my name is Stephen Roy. I'm sure most of you know me, but for the strangers reading this; thank you both for your time. There is a tl;dr at the bottom if you don't have the time to read about the procedure and why it's necessary.
Here's the situation. I have pretty severe nerve damage in most of my body and especially my legs (peripheral neuropathy) and eyes (retinopathy). For close to two years, I have been receiving bi-monthly injections in my eye to reduce swelling caused by the nerves. Not a fun procedure, but a necessary one. Without the injections, my eyes will continue to swell until further damage occurs.
On Wednesday 26 August, I woke up with my right eye almost completely blind. What part of my vision wasn't fuzzy to the point where I can only identify blobs was obscured by some new blind spots and a fluid-like string of eye floaters. I called the doctor to explain and they told me it's important to come in as soon as possible. I did some research on my symptoms and it appeared to be a detached retina.
What happens with a detached retina is as the name implies. The retina detaches from the rest of the eye, creating a pocket of fluid that can obscure your vision and can cause you to have some blind spots.
The doctor confirmed this diagnosis through ultra sound but also noticed that I had a lot of blood in my eye (this was what the floaters actually were). This was due to a bleed in the optic nerve. He said we need surgery as soon as possible because the longer the retina is detached, the likelihood of it becoming more detached increases, which can cause total blindness.
The official diagnosis is called Vitreous Hemorrhage and a Traction Retinal Detachment of the Right Eye. In short, I need eye surgery or else I will go blind in my right eye.
This is a picture of what's called an OCT scan. I won't go into the science behind it but the blue dot is the center of your eye. It's supposed to be blue and surrounded by green. Similar to a weather radar, it increases from yellow, to orange, to red, each indicating the amount of swelling. This picture is my left eye, which is bad enough to warrant the frequent injections.
This is my right eye... the yellow is moderate swelling but underneath all the black, is some red and orange. Severe swelling. The black and white blob is the blood that has leaked into my vitreous fluid. So essentially that's what my vision looks like in my eye.
The surgery needed is called a Vitrectomy. The long and short of the procedure is he needs to "spot weld" the retina black in place using an Endolaser. This part of the procedure is called a Panretinal Photocoagulation. Essentially, he's going to remove the blood with a needle, laser the retina back in place and cauterize it shut, do the same with the optic nerve to stop bleeding, and possibly inject a gas bubble against the retinal wall to hold it into place.
We had to drop 400 dollars already just to schedule the surgery for Monday 31 August. I received a call today saying we need an additional 1700 dollars before they will even touch my eye.
Unfortunately, no payment plans or options are available for this surgery and this is where I ask for help with the surgery costs. If you've taken the time to read this, I hope you can chip in and/or pass this along. I apologize for the sob story but this is a hugely necessary surgery. I hope you will consider. Thanks for your time everybody, I can't express how much it helps.
tl;dr
My right retina is detached and my optic nerve is bleeding causing almost complete loss of vision. I need an emergency surgery to save my vision and it costs over 2000 dollars. Any help whether it's $1, $5, $72000 or even sharing this on social media will help pay the cost of the necessary surgery.
Here's the situation. I have pretty severe nerve damage in most of my body and especially my legs (peripheral neuropathy) and eyes (retinopathy). For close to two years, I have been receiving bi-monthly injections in my eye to reduce swelling caused by the nerves. Not a fun procedure, but a necessary one. Without the injections, my eyes will continue to swell until further damage occurs.
On Wednesday 26 August, I woke up with my right eye almost completely blind. What part of my vision wasn't fuzzy to the point where I can only identify blobs was obscured by some new blind spots and a fluid-like string of eye floaters. I called the doctor to explain and they told me it's important to come in as soon as possible. I did some research on my symptoms and it appeared to be a detached retina.
What happens with a detached retina is as the name implies. The retina detaches from the rest of the eye, creating a pocket of fluid that can obscure your vision and can cause you to have some blind spots.
The doctor confirmed this diagnosis through ultra sound but also noticed that I had a lot of blood in my eye (this was what the floaters actually were). This was due to a bleed in the optic nerve. He said we need surgery as soon as possible because the longer the retina is detached, the likelihood of it becoming more detached increases, which can cause total blindness.
The official diagnosis is called Vitreous Hemorrhage and a Traction Retinal Detachment of the Right Eye. In short, I need eye surgery or else I will go blind in my right eye.
This is a picture of what's called an OCT scan. I won't go into the science behind it but the blue dot is the center of your eye. It's supposed to be blue and surrounded by green. Similar to a weather radar, it increases from yellow, to orange, to red, each indicating the amount of swelling. This picture is my left eye, which is bad enough to warrant the frequent injections.This is my right eye... the yellow is moderate swelling but underneath all the black, is some red and orange. Severe swelling. The black and white blob is the blood that has leaked into my vitreous fluid. So essentially that's what my vision looks like in my eye.The surgery needed is called a Vitrectomy. The long and short of the procedure is he needs to "spot weld" the retina black in place using an Endolaser. This part of the procedure is called a Panretinal Photocoagulation. Essentially, he's going to remove the blood with a needle, laser the retina back in place and cauterize it shut, do the same with the optic nerve to stop bleeding, and possibly inject a gas bubble against the retinal wall to hold it into place.
We had to drop 400 dollars already just to schedule the surgery for Monday 31 August. I received a call today saying we need an additional 1700 dollars before they will even touch my eye.
Unfortunately, no payment plans or options are available for this surgery and this is where I ask for help with the surgery costs. If you've taken the time to read this, I hope you can chip in and/or pass this along. I apologize for the sob story but this is a hugely necessary surgery. I hope you will consider. Thanks for your time everybody, I can't express how much it helps.
tl;dr
My right retina is detached and my optic nerve is bleeding causing almost complete loss of vision. I need an emergency surgery to save my vision and it costs over 2000 dollars. Any help whether it's $1, $5, $72000 or even sharing this on social media will help pay the cost of the necessary surgery.
Organizer and beneficiary
Stephen Roy
Organizer
Queen Creek, AZ
Christina Roy
Beneficiary