Me and my optic nerve

So yesterday I went to the opthamologist. It had been about 10 years since I last went to the eye doctor due to seeing halos around stuff (que twilight zone music). My eye doctor in the States did an eye exam and informed me that I was developing about an 18 inch focal point (almost precisely the distance from the end of my nose to my computer monitor/laptop screen) and that I needed to take a few breaks each day during work and alter the focus of my vision to relieve the stress on the muscles in my eyes. Due to working so much without breaks, my eyes were getting really fatigued and by the end of the day the eyes were so tired that the way they did something (insert big latin word that I can't pronounce here) wasn't as efficient and that is why the light refraction around objects like tail lights, reflective surfaces etc appeared to have a sort of halo effect.

10 years later, I notice I am starting to get headaches more often and a bit of acheing in my eye sockets at the end of the day.

So, I make my appointment and go. First, let me say the doctor was very very nice and incredibly professional and smaaaaaaht. He goes through the whole look here, is this blurry, put your chin here and look through this yaddayadda. He then gets to the dialating my eyes so he can take a pressure reading (GROSS) and look at the gooey parts inside with is magic machine (ick!). It really was a surreal experience. He puts the drops in my eyes and says: "Okay we are going to wait about 10 minutes and then really take a look."...he then proceeds to ask me about the whole Democratic nomination thing - the States' elections are being watched with great interest here by many people..

Right..pupils the size of plates and we are ready to continue.. Right eye - pressure good, gooey parts where they should be. Left eye - pressure good, gooey parts where they should be and something EXTRA where it shouldn't be.

Long and short of it:
1.) The protective film over my eyes is way too thin to keep out the goop and crap in the air and I have a happy whole year supply of some sort of medicated drops.
2.) I need glasses - stigmatism in both eyes (not bad luckily)and that pesky 18inch focal point is even more pronounced - spectacles here I come..

and the kicker..

3.) I have a "tumor" (his words not mine)in my left eye very close to the optic nerve and about 3mm from an important blood vessel. Now I freaked out like mad when he told me this. TUMOR!??! WHAT??!! Deep breaths and he tells me that it is not very common, however it does not appear to be malignant. Now I need to go to some special eye place and have them take a picture of the inside of my eye (DOUBLE GROSS!) and also see an opthamologist every year to monitor it because if it grows at all it could press on my optic nerve or cause blood flow problems and we all know the result of that. On the other hand if that happens it would give a legitimate reason to wear an eye patch and then I could talk like a pirate every day :)

Did I mention that dialation of the pupil makes it IMPOSSIBLE to read or be in bright light without searing pain to my head? of course I had to have this done when we have 18 frakin' hours of sunlight!!!

Sing with me now:
I wear my sunglasses at night..