Ryan Loza is a Senior Graphic Artist by profession. His love for the creative arts started when he was just a young boy. Ryan, however, was born with what is clinically termed as Myopia or extreme nearsightedness. This condition has caused him to struggle with his passion for design and the graphic arts and compromising the quality of his work.
Ryan lived with his condition for over 20 years making do with thick and heavy eyeglasses to see things clearly and be able to work. However, things turned for the worse one day in September 2015, when he suddenly experienced partial blindness while covering a school event at Our Lady of Fatima University, where he worked. There was initially the appearance of black floaters and sudden flashes of light and lastly, a partial blindness where it felt like black curtains were being pulled down his eye. What actually happened was Ryan suffered from Retinal Detachment, and he needed an emergency procedure to treat it.
Retinal Detachment is a condition when the retina pulls away from the back wall of the eyes. It is a serious condition that needs Detached Retina surgery. The most common cause of Retinal detachment is usually ageing or eye injury. In the case of Ryan, due to his Myopic predisposition, the eye becomes elongated and oblong and to cope with his nearsightedness there is stretching of the retina eventually tearing away from its normal position.
Ryan narrates his experience as “it was scary, not knowing or understanding what was happening to my eye. I went to the Fatima Eye Laser Center the following day to have myself checked and it was then that I found out about my condition. They scheduled me for surgery after undergoing several routine screening procedures to ensure I was fit and ready for surgery. The actual surgery took about 3 hours, 5 minutes of which was for the PRK to correct my refractive error.”
Through the expertise of Dr. Vic Santos, Jr., at the Fatima Eye Laser Center of Fatima University Medical Center, Ryan found treatment and relief. Not only was his Retinal Detachment fixed but at the same time, he also underwent Photorefractive Keratectomy or better known as PRK, an eye laser surgery procedure that corrects refractive problems like nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism.
For most people, refractive problems comes from the eyeball being too long or too short, or it can be the changing shape of the cornea, or it can also come with age. The good news is that it can be treated and at the Fatima Eye Laser Center, they have a complete line of eye procedure treatments that is up to par with worldwide standards and backed up by world renowned brand, Carl Zeiss.
Today, Ryan goes about his work free from the burdens of Myopia and eyeglasses. He enjoys the benefits of an almost perfect vision and he describes it in one powerful word – Freedom!
GALLERY
FUMC Antipolo