TAKING A SWING OUT OF LIFE: DR. BOVY'S STORY

How I chose optometry as my career path has it’s eventful moments, but did not start quite as long ago as Dr. K’s story…

The summer of my senior year in high school, I could often be found at my parents cabin in Lake Delhi. It was our getaway spot, and our family went just about every weekend. This particular weekend, I was pretty excited to be learning how to wakeboard! I was out on the water holding on to that handle pretty much all day. Spoiler alert: I definitely was in the water or hitting the water more than standing up that first day!

Clearly this was after I had improved my wakeboarding skills here as compared to my first day, where I didn’t even stand up!

We decided to hit one last spot to jump off the rope swing into the lake before we called it a day. This is something my brothers, cousins, and I did all the time. Nothing new, just a right of passage at the lake. However, this time was certainly one to remember. I was up next. My hands were pretty exhausted from wakeboarding all day, but I didn’t think much of it. Almost as soon as I grabbed on to the rope and started swinging, my hands gave out. The rope slipped and snapped back at me and hit my left eye. All I can remember was an instant pain. I mean, makes sense, a big rope knot just hit me with force! I couldn’t see for a couple minutes, but when I started to regain vision, I noticed a distinct line in my vision. Not knowing any better I thought a piece of the rope was stuck in my eye. No wonder I was experiencing pain!

I came back to the cabin and told my parents what had happened. My mom, being a nurse, knew better than I did that this was an emergency situation. So off to the ER we went! They did a full workup at the nearest hospital, but couldn’t conclude much. They just insisted that if I’m still seeing that line in my vision to go to a specialist the next day.

Sure enough, when I woke up, that line in my vision was still there. My mom took me to the specialist where they had more answers for me… it was a horseshoe tear. I asked lots of questions and found out that a horseshoe tear of the retina is an actual medical term to describe a rip of the tissue in the back of the eye. It’s kind of like a flap of tissue. One part is fully detached while the other side of the tear is still attached to the back of the eye. They also explained that if it went an additional 48 hours untreated, most likely I could have gone blind in that eye. Clearly this was a serious issue! They needed to immediately perform in office procedures to reattach my retina. The specialist did what he called laser photocoagulation. He used a laser attached to the machine that typically evaluates the health of your eyes to reseal the tissue that had become detached. But all I can remember is the pain! More pain! It was extremely intense pain as I had inflammation of part of the front of my eye due to the impact of the rope. The specialist had attached a temporary lens on to my eye so he could magnify the area in the back of my eye that he was working on, but I just remember a really bright light as I had a difficult time keeping my eye, well actually both eyes, open for this procedure. It seemed like foorrreevvverrr until he was done! Once he was finished, the pain remained for a couple hours later.

At my follow ups after this procedure, I just kept hoping that I didn’t have to go through that procedure again. Luckily, the specialist got everything taken care of with the first laser procedure and no further treatment was necessary. I was monitored closely for awhile to make sure my eye had healed properly.

This was one of the coolest kids that I got to meet through Dance Marathon.

Fast forward a little bit to the college years. Here’s where it all comes together. I knew I had always wanted to follow my middle brother to the University of Iowa (go Hawks!), but after that I really didn’t know. My mom always said that I was good at arguing, and yes, I’ll take that as a compliment! So maybe a lawyer? No, definitely something medical where I can interact with patients. I also focused on charity opportunities while in college, like Dance Marathon. We signed up to run the Chicago Marathon, but also celebrated during a 24 hour period of dancing with the kids from the Iowa Children’s Hospital, both events were a way to raise money for the Children’s Hospital. It was a night I realized that I love giving back and helping kids as well. Ok so maybe a pediatrician? Well, I figured I’d start by declaring a pre-med major and go from there.

The summer after my first year in college, I needed a summer job. I was looking though the University of Iowa job listings and found an optometry technician job. I recalled my traumatic eye experience just a short while earlier. I did find the eye to be interesting and it was intriguing to learn about the retina during my incident. Plus, all the people that helped me along the way were really nice, so sure! Let’s give this a try!

I got the job as an optometry technician for Dr. Kane, who’s practice was inside of a LensCrafter’s near my college. It was a fantastic experience! I loved that I still got to interact with patients, which was a top priority for me, but I also liked being a part of people’s journey toward sight. It was a great opportunity and truly opened my eyes to the world of optometry as a career path. I was eager to dive right in with this newfound guidance on my career and talked to my advisor about leaving the University of Iowa a year early as I had heard some other students were doing. This particular advisor wasn’t so keen on the idea, maybe because they didn’t know if I could do that or because they didn’t have much background in advising pre-optometry students. Either way, I stayed and graduated from Iowa after four years.

ICO Graduation 2014… already making a pretty great team!

I’m so glad that I did! Not only do I get to call the University of Iowa my alma mater, something I know I try to wrap into almost every conversation (again, go Hawks!), but it also led me to Courtney. Because she left college early, and I did not, we were able to meet in the same class at Illinois College of Optometry. Bringing our two unique backgrounds together, I think we make a perfect team in life but also at Spectacle.

I’m so honored to be able to tie all my life experiences into one through optometry at our practice. I’m happy to explain every condition to my patients just as I was taught about my horseshoe tear. I love having the time and opportunity to interact with my patients, young and old, each and every day, often with a joke or two. I’m proud that we offer lots of options to constantly give back, whether through our glasses donations year round or our seasonal toy drive around the holidays. Opening Spectacle Optometry has been the best, but also maybe scariest, decision we ever made! I am truly excited to be seeing patients each day that I’m there, meeting each and every new face, and being able to share what I love about optometry (and Iowa!) with all of you!