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Cataract surgery. Something old people have to have. Or so I used to think. Wait, I AM an old people! Well, it has become my time. Had the cataract evaluation visit, and the surgery for the first eye was scheduled last Monday (January 10, 2011). I prepped for 3 days with a series of eye drops, not too difficult (tho I wasted a lot of the drops [which turned out to be rather expensive] in the process), and arrived at the very early surgery appointment sans even coffee.It was reassuring how everyone explained what they were doing and why, what was going to happen, and so on. They put in an IV on my hand; in case general anesthesia was needed, it could be quickly plugged in. Tape was pulled across my forehead, securing my head to the surgical situation, so nothing would move. No doubt! For sure, I didn't want anything moving. Explaining all the while, they put liquid in my eye, some of which was the anesthetic. Then something was placed over my face, with an arrangement that would keep my lids open. When I had the impulse to blink, I was to go ahead and blink; nothing would move.
Then the doctor got going on his project. There was absolutely no pain, and as they said would happen, I could feel things going on, a bit of pressure, etc. What no one mentioned was the kaleidoscopic light show! Multiple colors, brilliant starbursts, quite a bit like fireworks one sees put on in large cities. Felt like I was in Sydney, Australia on New Years Eve. Blue wave shapes radiated out at one point. Reds, pinks, golden sunset hues, even that breathtaking turquoise the Bay gets just after sunset. Fascinating. Turns out I was giving doctor and nurses a more or less blow-by-blow description of my visions. Dr. chuckled, saying no one had ever done that before! I explained he needed to know I was a writer, and I'd be writing this up on Facebook.
Toward the end of the procedure (5 minutes or so), I was getting a bit tired of the whole thing, I think, and the pressure was a tad intense, such that I wiggled my foot, and got admonition to keep my feet still. I guess everything IS connected. Then it was all over, they stripped off the tape (Yikes!) and after a slight rest, helped me sit up. I was helped to a chair to sit for awhile, to be sure I was OK. Yep, I was. I was released to go with my friend/chauffeur for breakfast, and was to return at 12:30 for a post-surgery check-up. Had to wear the dark glasses, not only for sunlight (had there been any) but to keep wind (of which there was plenty) from blowing stuff in my eye.
Lynn, our waitress at IHOP, kept the coffee coming and boy was it good! I do love my morning coffee. I had the spinach/chicken/mushroom crepes and one of my friend's pancakes. And more coffee. We tarried there until it was time to return to the Victoria Eye Center. Dr. added an additional prescription to deal with some unwanted eye pressure, and made appointment to see me the following morning.
I got home with my 3-page chart for 7 weeks of keeping track of four different prescription eye drops. Turns out they had no generic, and so were rather expensive, even with a drug plan. I was to tape a clear plastic eye shield over my eye at night, so that I wouldn't smush anything. Tuesday morning, I launched out by myself, rather bravely assuming the 6:45 a.m. travel in the dark would be OK. And it was! The crucial test was the intersection where one makes a couple of jogs to get on the road to Victoria, and with plant traffic streaming toward me, I would not have been able to get through it before the surgery. It was great--I could see the lanes, the lane markers, everything, in pitch dark, with traffic lights in my eyes all over the place. When I walked in to the Eye Center, I gave them the arms-up touchdown declaration.
After 3 applications of the $70 bottle of eye drops, the eye pressure was A-OK, and I was to stop that one. Still more inflammation than the Dr. wanted to see, so he upped one of the others to every 2 hours, instead of every 4 hours, and made appointment to see me next Tuesday. I got back to Seadrift in time to open the library at 12 noon.
The schedule of eye drops gradually diminishes in number as the weeks pass. To start, some are to be applied 4 times a day, some 3 times a day. By week 6 and 7, I'll only be putting one in twice a day. Thank goodness for the chart, so you can check off what you've done.
The really good news is that the eye is doing splendid! Aside from the night driving challenge, the problems had come on over time, and I didn't realize how much I was missing. With just the one eye done, I am seeing so much more clearly. I'm extremely thankful for this medical solution to an aging problem that earlier generations simply had to put up with. The second eye surgery will be scheduled soon.
FEBRUARY 19, 2011
Had the 2nd eye operation February 7. All went well, tho the visual kaleidoscope was different than it was for the first eye. Not so much starbursts as rolling, ever-evolving colors, mostly pink and blue, with some off-shoots now and then. I was more aware of the soft sound, of a slightly circular impression. Finished up and I and my chauffeur were sent off to breakfast. IHOP again, can't beat their coffee and pancakes! Went back for the check-up in couple of hours. Dr. declared everything looking like it should, and we headed for home.
A bit of a challenge for this interim period. My old glasses now do not work for anything: distance vision is 20/20 (yay!), so don't have to wear any glasses when walking around, on computer, driving. But for reading, or looking at something close-up, have to have magnifying glass. I invested in some of those store readers, which is getting me through, but drives me nuts, putting them on when I need to see something (prices at stores, reading instructions on boxes), and yanking them off otherwise--Whoa, if I look up with those readers on, I'm in a very nauseous, wavy world! Weekly check-ups show my eyes are doing splendid, continuing with the change of eye drops in the recently done eye, as was done with the first eye. Dr. said a very few "unusual and unique" folks respond to the alternate eye drops much better. Well, we've always known I was unusual and unique, haven't we!
A little more than a week to go, then we can get going on the new glasses. The vision "evolves," they said, for a few weeks, so can't determine prescription for reading portion of glasses until that settles down. All in all, I'm ecstatic about the whole process. Not only is it great to notice much brigher colors in what I see, whiter whites, and everything sharp and clear, but I found the surgery very interesting.
I googled cataract eye surgery and the implants; fascinating! And one of the eye doctors, after I was querying about possible rejection of the implants, told me something truly amazing. He said, first of all, they have no problem with rejection (even with unusual and unique folks). The material used for the implants came about due to a plane crash. Someone in the vision field ran across an anomaly. The airplane windshield shattered in the crash, and the pilot got bits of the windshield in his eyes. To their astonishment, they realized there was absolutely no problem due to this foreign matter in the pilot's eyes. And from that mishap, they began making the eye implants out of this material, that is used for aircraft windshields.
Isn't it an incredible world we live in?
