I was just working away on my laptop on the couch last night and all of a sudden everything in my vision started to whiz back and forth uncontrollably.

It was like there was an earthquake across the middle of my vision. To make a long story short, my doctor told me today that it was an ocular migraine.

To make a short story longer, I've tried here with Photoshop to recreate a snapshot of what it looked like:

This is pretty close to what this so-called ocular migraine looked like literally from my point of view, except that the movement wasn't smooth; it was herky-jerky and super fast, even though my eyes weren't moving.

The ocular migraine went on for maybe a minute or more. It's hard to say. At first I thought it maybe there was something in my left eye, but rubbing didn't stop it.

Then I just sat there as everything whirred around.

I was a passenger in my own body watching my vision go haywire

And it started to freak me out a little. I have been knocked out before, playing hockey, and when you come out of it your vision is kind of blurry. And I have had pain events that were so sever that for a few seconds I could see kind of like bright sparks all around my field of vision. And that was weird, but at least I could connect it with my body's reaction to pain.

All those were different than this. I just sat there wondering if it was ever going to end or if my eyesight was suddenly going to completely leave me all of a sudden.

It seemed to be mostly in my left eye. It was quite a disconcerting feeling. Just like you're feeling as you look at my eyeball here.

So, what's wrong with my left eye? Other than those Louis Vuittons I lug around underneath them, and the constant bloodshot both of them have. And lyrics.

The ocular migraine thing finally stopped

I was fine. Except for a dull headache. But nothing 'migrainy'. Migraine never crossed my mind.

This morning I started wondering whether maybe it was a stroke or something so I got an appointment with my doctor and went downtown to his office late afternoon.

All is well. No recurrences. But I still had that headache. Bill (my doctor) tells me that from what I was telling him it was an ocular migraine. He called it a scintillating scotoma.

Wow, a scintillating scotoma. That's one pretty fancy name for blurry vision. Sounds a bit ominous, doesn't it. Anything with an '...oma' at the end sounds convincingly dire.

But Bill thinks that it's just a migraine headache. He thinks, anyway. So he's getting me a CAT scan appointment for safety's sake.

But I worry

"Is it because I'm as large as a bus? Does that cause an ocular migraine?" I ask him.

"No."

Phew.

I went home and I ordered in some Chinese. It should arrive here any minute.