I placed a weekend call to my eye doc and the surgeon who worked on my eye was actually on call. He called me back just now and talked all about it. He explained how flashes of light could be normal especially since there had been a retinal problem he had worked on (I won't go into all the scientific details here). But it was helpful to talk to him. He'll see me on Monday and let me know if there's anything I should be worried about but that the flashes were likely to be expected for me (AND that I may have had them and not noticed them in the past, which I realize).

Sidony