Today’s post is very personal and very important to me. In order to keep it as brief as possible, I will include links to a few of the resources I am using so that you may learn more about the subject if you desire.

This morning, my mom is having the first of three injections to help preserve her vision. Her beautiful, ever-smiling blue eyes might fool you into thinking everything is just fine, but it’s not. In fact, she might ask you to pick up a little white thread in the middle of the living room floor—which would imply at first that her vision is just fine—but because of her very blurred vision, she might not know whom she’s asking to pick up the thread. What she can and cannot see is often dependent on the way the light hits an object. If there is a strong contrast, she can see it quite clearly.

But it hasn’t always been like this. In addition to glaucoma, she has macular degeneration. Though it is only one disease, there are two forms of this disease with the formal name of AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration): dry and wet. Up to this point, my mom has had dry macular degeneration.

I am by no means an expert on this topic, but in talking with Mom about sharing this on my blog, she encouraged me to find and include information that might be helpful to others who don’t know they have this disease but simply think they are “getting old” and can’t see as well as they used to.

The home page of amdawareness.com states: “Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a chronic condition that causes central vision loss. It affects millions of Americans. In fact, it is a leading cause of blindness in people 60 and older. The older you are, the greater your chance of being affected.”

The site goes on to share the following explanations:

“AMD occurs when the macula—the central portion of the retina that is important for reading and color vision—becomes damaged. Wet AMD is the more serious form, with more than 200,000 people in the United States diagnosed every year. Without treatment, patients can lose their central vision over time, leaving only peripheral, or side, vision. The symptoms can occur suddenly or gradually over time. Early detection and treatment can help you avoid severe vision loss.”

For those of you who like to know the medical descriptions, Wikipedia has a further explanation of what occurs when one has the wet form of AMD: “Neovascular or exudative AMD, the “wet” form of advanced AMD, causes vision loss due to abnormal blood vessel growth (choroidal neovascularization) in the choriocapillaris, through Bruch’s membrane, ultimately leading to blood and protein leakage below the macula. Bleeding, leaking, and scarring from these blood vessels eventually cause irreversible damage to the photoreceptors and rapid vision loss if left untreated…Macular degeneration is not painful, which may allow it to go unnoticed for some time.“

As I mentioned, Mom is having an outpatient procedure done today in which the eye will be injected with something that is actually designed to absorb the leakage that is occurring below the macula. There will be three rounds of this injection over the next few months.

I shared this information with my mother’s permission today for two reasons. First, I want to help make others aware of this disease and perhaps help save someone’s vision in the process. Secondly, I write in order to ask that you please pray with me that this procedure will help to eliminate the further onset of blindness, and that it may help to restore her to the ability to read—and more! Being a woman of great faith, my mom sincerely believes that God knows what is best, and she amazingly remains positive and grateful for every gift God has given and continues to give!

In closing, I want to share an important link to a simple test you can do from home. The link is to a grid that is used to help diagnose the presence of AMD. It will only take you a second, but I ask you to please take a moment to do this. If everything looks fine, that’s awesome! If there is even a slight indication that something is wrong, please contact your eye doctor and request to be tested for AMD. The earlier the detection, the greater the effect of early-stage treatments!

http://www.eyesight.org/Macular_Degeneration/Eye_Test/eye_test.html