Vision Loss

From the schmaltzy tone of the title, I’m sure you can tell that this will be one schmaltzy piece of writing.

For those of us who love to take risks, there’s nothing better than free-falling. I’m not talking about the schmaltzy Tom Petty jingle from the early 90’s, either. I’m talking about that heart-in-your-throat, brain-scrambling, stomach-doing-somersaults feeling you get when you either intentionally or unintentionally hurl yourself from a distance of greater than about 30 feet to the ground.

We’ve all taken that phantom step in the dark while walking up or down the stairs before. You know, the one where you either think that there’s another step to take when there isn’t or that there isn’t another step when there actually is one (the second of these examples being the more potentially disastrous). Think of that split-second of panic when your mind realizes that you’ve misstepped and gets ready for the searing pain that is certain to follow. Take that feeling, stretch it out over 15 seconds or so, and you can begin to ascertain what it feels like to bungee jump. There is no greater rush than to trick your mind into thinking that it is about to get smashed into a million pieces. Some people say that it is the closest feeling to being born that humans will ever attain (OK, I made that part up, but you know what I’m talking about).

Consider me a wrung-out-rag when I learned today that bungee jumping (and indeed every activity that has a violent jerking motion associated with it) can lead to visual impairment. The New England Journal of Medicine reported in its latest issue that a 24-year-old woman in seemingly impeccable health partially lost vision in one of her eyes due to a “pool of blood, or a blood blister, [that] formed at the back of her left eye as a result of the abrupt jerking stop.” I guess the “bungee” part of bungee jumping caused something back there to rupture and eventually caused her vision to decline from 20/20 to 20/25 (after surgery). So now you know the risks and rewards of bungee jumping. It’s all fun and games until your eye gets jerked out.