By Mary Spaeth, as told to Stacey Jones
Both my grandfather and my mother had very serious problems with their eyes as they got older. So I sort of expected there to be a problem with mine. I went to an ophthalmologist all the time. Three years ago, the ophthalmologist said, “I'm seeing signs of macular degeneration.”
He gave me a prescription for something called ForeseeHome, a home monitoring device that detects macular degeneration, and that machine picked up a problem in my left eye about 2 years ago. I couldn’t tell anything different, but the machine picked it up. The doctors started giving me shots in my left eye for wet macular degeneration. About a year ago, I started having very noticeable signs of geographic atrophy in my right eye.
For some people with geographic atrophy, they see dark spots. I don't have any dark spots in my vision. It's just that in places where I should see things, they aren't there. If I look at a couple of parallel lines, the lines look normal at the top and the bottom, but at the middle where I'm looking, they collapse onto each other. If I try to read words, the letters and the words are all mixed up. I can't read a word because of the letters — some are here, some are there. They don't look like words at all.
GA Makes Work Challenging
I’m a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I went to work there, I think, in 1974. I do a lot of analysis and measurements in the lab, and then you take the data or your analysis and plot them on your computer. You need to be able to see what you're plotting. I have to have extra big screens and things like that in order to be able to see what I'm looking at.
What macular degeneration does is that you need more light to be able to see. What geographic atrophy does is it mangles everything so that what you’re looking at is all mixed up. So I try to use both eyes. My right eye actually can get more light into it. If you bend your head, close one eye, and use a big screen, it helps. I have one of those things, about the size of a half sheet of paper, and it has a flat lens in it. It’s called a Fresnel lens. I also use a Magnipros magnifier that has little diodes all the way around the edges so that you can turn the light up. It’s very helpful.
I started becoming hard of hearing when I was quite young. So I learned to read lips. Before my eyes started going bad, I could look at somebody across the room and read their lips. Now they have to be about 5 feet or less away from me in order for me to read their lips.
Although it's mixed up, the important thing about having my right eye still available at some level is that the combination of your left eye and your right eye lets you see better in 3D. It's much easier if you're reading lips in 3D because you're not just looking at the mouth, you're looking at the cheeks and the nose and the way the head is moving – all those kinds of things. If I have my hearing aids in, I can hear the vowels. I watch the face and I can see the consonants, and my brain has learned to put those together.
Treating Geographic Atrophy
When I was first diagnosed, injections for geographic atrophy were only available for clinical study. When the injections were approved about 6 months or so ago, I started getting shots for geographic atrophy in my right eye.
After an eye exam, doctors use this incredible machine. I don't know how it works, even as a laser physicist. They shine a blue and a red light in your eye. From that information, they can make this 3D image of your retina. It's the most amazing thing. The doctor can interpret what that 3D image is saying with respect to what's wrong with your eyes.
After they do that, they measure the pressure in your eyes and put anesthetic in them. Then, more anesthetic. You wait for a few minutes for that to take effect, then they give you more anesthetic, but now this time they actually shoot it into your eyeball. After that, they give you another hypodermic syringe that has a biologic medicine in it.
I don't always hold still, but if you don't hold still, it cuts your eyeball. The eye is open and you're watching, and you can see the fluid go into your eyeball. It kind of swirls a little bit. And then it turns into a little ball, sometimes three.
After all that, they wash your eyes. You look down, look up, look right, look left. Every time that you do that, they shoot saline solution in your eye to try to wash out all the anesthetic and whatever else might be there. They give you a couple of drops of antibiotics in your eye, and then you're done.
When the anesthetic wears off, it starts to hurt. And depending upon whether or not you held still, if you scratched your eye, it hurts for about 3 days. If not, it’s about 4 to 6 hours. Sometimes you are able to see again quite fast, and sometimes you really can't see very well for another 6 hours or so.
Keeping Up With Hobbies and Daily Living
My hobby has been woodworking all my life. I've built toys, furniture, and cabinets and things like that. I have a shop in the garage. And I have very nice equipment, but it's harder to see the dials and the numbers. It makes everything go slower because you have to look at it this way and that way and double check that you're doing something right.
I don't drive as much as I used to. The hard part about driving is being able to read the details of the road signs. I’m fortunate in that by driving in the daytime when I can see very well, I can still drive in neighborhoods that I’m familiar with and where I don’t always need to read the details of the road signs. We haven’t learned how to use Uber or Lyft yet, but I suppose that eventually we will need to.
I don’t know if the shots for geographic atrophy are working. I believe they are working! I know that if you don't get the shots, it can go much faster. I also take two of the AREDS2 pills (supplements containing antioxidants used to treat macular degeneration) every day. The doctor seems to think that it’s a good idea to keep taking them.
I’m 85. I hope that my eyes don't take me down first. I hope something else does because I love to be able to see, I love to be able to do work, and I'm not a person who sits around. My kids used to say I'm a workaholic and I’d say, “I'm not a workaholic. I'm a ‘busyaholic.’” I don't like to sit still.
I hope to be able to continue to move and do the things I like to do, at least on some level. And that means I need to be able to see.
Show Sources
Photo Credit: Westend61/Getty Images
Mary Spaeth, Livermore, CA.
Apellis Pharmaceuticals.
Cleveland Clinic: “Geographic Atrophy.”
Ophthalmology Retina: “Home Monitoring of Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Utility of the ForeseeHome Device for Detection of Neovascularization.”
