.... In the weeks that followed, I saw more flashes of light that I knew weren't there. I saw growing numbers of "floaters," odd shapes that drifted across my field of vision. Once, while washing dishes, I panicked at the sight of a swarm of them congregating around a basket of bananas. Surprise! My floaters were actually fruitflies. (Somehow, I was not comforted.)

When I got worried enough to visit my eye doctor, he told me my eye tricks might signal a developing tear or detachment of the retina, the layer of cells that receives images and sends them to the brain via the optic nerve. If you see something like a curtain crossing your vision from any direction, he warned, come in right away.

Three days later, I saw the dreaded curtain, rising from the bottom of my right eye's visual field. I went to the George Washington University Ambulatory Care Center, where retinal specialist Fadi Nasrallah put me on the retinal fast track. ... 


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