Nurse Suddenly Lost Her Sight While Treating Patients. Then Came an Unexpected Diagnosis (Exclusive)

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3 hours ago

While working in the ER, Breanna T. suddenly lost her vision and kept treating patients as her sight deteriorated
She was told it wasn't emergent, but days later, a specialist diagnosed her with acute angle closure glaucoma
Breanna's vision has returned, but her story, and viral TikTok, have sparked wider conversations about advocacy and medication side effectsOne moment, Breanna T. was helping patients during a routine emergency room shift, and the next, the world around her was a blur.
The ER nurse had no warning before her vision disappeared in both eyes, kicking off a frightening medical mystery that would later go viral on TikTok.
In the video, Breanna reenacts what unfolded in those first 48 hours with a pointed 'put a finger down' challenge, recounting how she finished her shift while barely able to see, and the journey that followed before she received a diagnosis.
'I looked up to see who was calling my name, and I couldn't see her at all,' Breanna tells PEOPLE, describing the moment everything changed. 'It was just very shocking to me, because literally 10 seconds before that, I was seeing just fine.'
She had just stepped out of a patient's room to assist a fellow nurse when the sudden loss of sight occurred. As panic swelled beneath the surface, her clinical instincts kicked in.
'I cleaned my glasses, I took my blood pressure, I took my blood sugar … I was just trying to go through everything I could think of to fix it,' she says. 'I was also at work, still responsible for helping care for patients, so I was doing my best to keep my composure.'
Rather than alerting her team right away, Breanna first tried to troubleshoot the situation herself. She didn't want to raise the alarm until she had ruled out the basics.
'I was like, 'Here's the situation … do you guys have any ideas? Because I've already done everything I can think of,' ' she recalls telling her coworkers and several doctors. 'So then we started spitballing, trying to figure out what else we could test.'
She had been trained to recognize red flags for emergencies and was deeply concerned about the possibility of a stroke. But her symptoms weren't fitting into any box.
'Loss of vision is a pretty standard stroke symptom,' she explains. 'But because it was both eyes at the same time and I had no other symptoms, I tried to stay levelheaded.'
Her coworkers asked all the right questions, but nothing beyond her vision seemed to be affected. 'People were asking, 'Do you have a headache? Are you nauseous?' But literally, it was just my vision change,' she says. 'So I was honestly at a loss, because this didn't look like the heart attacks, strokes or brain bleeds I've seen before.'
After confirming there were no immediate life-threatening causes, the ER team told her to follow up outpatient. As a nurse, Breanna understood why, but as a patient, it felt unsettling.
'I tell patients this all the time, and being on the other side of it was eye-opening,' she says. 'It wasn't life-threatening, but it was still scary not knowing what was going to happen next.'
After her shift, she tried to book an urgent appointment with her optometrist, but found herself stuck. She couldn't even get far enough into a conversation to explain why she needed care.
'They'd say, 'We don't have openings,' before I could tell them I was having an emergent vision change,' she says. 'I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.'
With emergency services having done all they could, and no specialist available, she was left waiting and hoping. Her boyfriend began calling providers on her behalf, trying to get her seen. 'It was just really frustrating,' she says. 'I felt like I was being stopped before I was even able to tell anybody why I needed an immediate visit.'
In total, Breanna spent five days with severely compromised vision. On the first day, she received contacts that somewhat helped, but even those came with side effects.
'They weren't perfect, and they gave me more headaches than not being able to see,' she says. 'So I was only wearing them when I absolutely had to.'
When she finally got an appointment with an optometrist, she decided to go alone. She had no idea just how serious the visit would become. 'He stayed really calm, but started asking questions that felt odd,' she says. 'Then he told me my eye scans didn't look normal. My pressures were way above average, and he could see swelling.'
The diagnosis was acute angle closure glaucoma, a rare condition that can come on rapidly and without warning. The optometrist told her she needed to see a specialist immediately or head straight to a hospital with ophthalmology on call.
'It was 4:30 p.m. on a Friday,' Breanna says. 'I was scared I'd have to go back to the ER and start all over again.'
Though her boyfriend and mom rushed to be with her, Breanna had faced the alarming news alone. And in that moment, her thoughts went straight to her son. 'I'm a mom. I have a toddler,' she says. 'All I could think was, 'Am I going to be able to see my son grow up?' '
The disease typically takes years to develop, but Breanna had deteriorated within hours. Doctors were optimistic her case would be reversible, but the wait was excruciating.
'I wasn't ready to stop my medication, but that's what ended up solving it,' she says. 'I stopped taking it that day, and by the time it was out of my system, my vision returned.' Her care team believes the antidepressant triggered the event, likely due to an underlying condition. And for Breanna, the timeline made sense.
'The half-life of the medication lined up with when my vision came back,' she says. 'They're almost 99% sure it was [that].'
Breanna hadn't been familiar with her diagnosis before that day. Glaucoma wasn't something she had seen often in the ER, especially not in this form. 'The patients I've cared for had long-term glaucoma, with black spots or floaters — not blurry vision like I had,' she says. 'Even the symptoms didn't line up.'
At one point, she was even questioned about exposure to rare diseases due to her line of work. Ebola, measles and Lyme disease were all floated. 'I said no, and I still stand by no,' she says. 'But contact tracing takes weeks, so it's still something we may have to revisit.'
Still, because her symptoms cleared after stopping the medication, her team now leans heavily toward that explanation. And they found something else along the way.
'I have an enlarged optic nerve on my left side, which predisposes me to glaucoma,' she says. 'That may be why it happened to me and not someone else.'
Breanna will now have yearly checkups to monitor her eye health. The goal is early detection should anything change in the future. 'It was an incidental finding, but a good one,' she says. 'Even though my symptoms have resolved, I'm still at risk for developing another type of glaucoma later on.'
Returning to work felt emotional and empowering. It reminded her why she became a nurse in the first place. 'I was just grateful to still be able to do my job,' she says. 'I didn't want to lose my career, and I didn't want to lose my motherhood.'
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As for advice for others, Breanna wants people navigating confusing health issues to keep advocating for themselves, even when the answers are slow. It only takes one person to listen. 'You're your biggest advocate,' Breanna says. 'You're the only one who can really explain what's going on in your body.'
She also acknowledges how often women are dismissed in medical spaces. And though she works in healthcare, she felt it herself. 'Being a woman makes it harder as they're quicker to brush you off,' she says. 'You just have to keep fighting until you find someone who takes you seriously.'
Looking back, she wishes more people understood the emotional toll of being caught between not fitting a diagnosis and not getting answers. Her case didn't follow a pattern, which left even doctors unsure where to start.
'If you don't meet the classic symptoms, people don't know where to begin,' she says. 'That doesn't mean you're not sick.'
Her TikTok has sparked wide conversation but she never meant to scare anyone. She just wanted to tell the truth. 'I wasn't making that video to tell people to stop their meds,' she says. 'If you're afraid of side effects, that's okay … just talk to your doctor first.'
Read the original article on People