Ophthalmologists!!!
 

Anyone know of a debilitating, somewhat rapidly-deteriorating eye disease/condition/affliction that can lead to death which was NOT treatable by conventional means in the 1950s? Woman needs to go blind over the course of 5 years and then die.

It's a love story! Yay!!

The blindness could be a symptom of something else but she needs to be able to have children while suffering though all of this . . . because isn't that what every woman wants? Joking! Joking. She was on a three week trip to parts unknown so if the condition/disease is something that exists only in some remote locale it will work for the story. Parts unknown can become wherever this problem lies.

A cancer would do that okay. In the 50s there probably were no treatments that would have interfered with having children. You may want to search on cancers of the brain / eye that could cause blindness.

HTH - I am not a MD - so remember what you paid for the consultation.

G

masturbation.

Nah......that's hairy palms.

Death due to tragic accident, which would have been easily avoidable if she had eyesight still...

Depends. For example, if you stop once you need glasses you won't go blind....

She'd already gotten over her chronic female masterbation problem (or cfm, talk to your doctor to see if you may have this condition) by the time she got hooked on bath salts.

Cancer might be the ticket.

Some type of brain tumor, but wasn't that already done in "Love Story"? That was so long ago that I forgot.......

I was thinking that Loa loa filariasis might fit the bill, but it's not fatal, unless your heroine steps into an old well she couldn't see, while trying to get her old cat back in the house, during a thunderstorm, when the power went out.

I fly every weekend with a Retina Surgeon and I don't think I can ask him that question.

ms

That looks like the winner.

MS? At which point does it usually affect vision?

Almost immediately in some instances

MS - about 40% of patients developing MS present with optic neuritis. Acute vision loss usually unilateral of varying degree with recovery possible (complete to partial) High dose IV steroids delay the onset/worsening of MS for sometime but oral steroid treatment tended to hasten/exacerbate progression - Google ONTT. In the 50's this wasn't known either way. Her test results would have reduced acuity, poor color vision test results, an afferent pupillary defect if unilateral and a normal dilated eye exam (infrequently a swollen optic nerve) initially. Over time with incomplete recovery or recurrent episodes would develop optic nerve pallor. Pregnancy can affect the time course sometimes will accelerate post-partum while fairly quiescent during pregnancy.

Brain cancers generally more rapidly progressive from what you specify as your timeframe although there are more indolent form which could fit if they happened in the occipital cortex. Would likely present with a homonymous visual field defect affecting either left or right side. Probably would have generated a chance to cut is a chance to cure response at some point.

Imaging modalities - CT scans first appeared early '70's, PET mid '70's and MRI early '80's
so only x-ray likely although may have had some primitive tomography done manually.

Visual field testing - Goldmann manual perimetry developed in mid '40's no automated perimeters until the late '60's. Tangent screen testing also in wide use.

You've provided me a solid direction to head in.

Thanks.

If it is not too late, maybe she went to Ivory Coast Africa with some missionaries and washed he face with untreated water and got those little worms that come in through the eyes and make you go blind fairly quickly and then go on up into the brain and kill you?! The last ship I was in in 1984 had 3 sailors have this happen and by the time we got to San Diego 5 months later all 3 were blind and one was in and out of a coma!

Missionaries! She is NOT that kind of woman, sir!

Anyone know when PERRLA (D+C) was invented or became common practice . . . it's not been immediately apparent in my searches. I actually reached all the way back into the porn pages on Google search before giving up.

edit: this stuff is so cool. In the morning, I think I'll subject my wife to a "swinging flashlight test" and accuse her of neurologic damage. In about two days I'll be about as learned as any ophthalmologist. Unfortunately, in three days I'll be back to hanging pictures using a rock as a hammer.

If having a child from a MS mother is plot dependent, don't forget the genetic angle.
Other causes might effect the same.

Thought it wasn't considered hereditary?

edit: Okay, possibly genetic, environmental and infectious causes. Why don't they just add extra-terrestrial and admit they don't quite know yet? Interesting bit about uric acid, though. Now reading about retrobulbar optic neuritis.