Thursday, January 14, 2010

An End User's Experience with Cataract Surgery.

So the eye doctor's office called twice with time changes for me to head to the hospital. They finally settled on the original time. I liked being in the loop, but good lord!

Brian, youngest son, drops me off at the curb. He's gonna stay in the car, play the radio and play with his new Android phone. Hmmmmm.

I walk in, go to the Outpatient Services Desk and say, "Okay, I'm here. Cut me."

Both ladies behind the desk laugh and the one closest to me says turn around, walk to your right, past the gift shop and go to Outpatient Surgery Desk.

This is not looking good.

Same joke gets same reaction. Please sit down Mr. Witt and we'll call you when we have a room.

Have a room, I say to myself, what was all the dicking around over times all about then. As I reached for my phone to play BubbleBlaster (no clue why I like it, it's a dumb game but I love it) a lday comes up to me ascorts me to my room. No bed, just a lounger.

This won't hurt a bit. She's right. The IV needle didn't hurt at all. I want her to do all my sticking from now on.

We're going to put the goop into your eye now. Goop?

Lidocaine in a gel. Now I know what lidocaine is from the TV shows.

Three times. Goopy crap. But my eye is numb as a post now.

"Hi, I'm Tim, please get up on the gurney and we'll wheel you in." Turns out- he's the anesthesiologist. He keeps telling about the 'couple of cocktails we're going to give you.'

He straps in the blood pressure cuff, inserts the O2 hose in my nose and says he's starting now.

Nuthin. The only good part of the procedure was the professional grade drugs. Yes. I am a child of the 60s.

My eye doctor opens my lids with a contraption that looks like it came out of the Marquis de Sade's basement. Eye's numb, no problem.

15 years ago he went in on top of the cornea. This time it was the side. Either way, the procedure (see? I can talk like a Doctor, too) lasted all of ten minutes. And they let me out of the hospital five minutes after I got back to the room.

No glasses. Didn't really need them now. It was like looking through a quart milk bottle (remember those?) with about a half inch of milk still in it. It seemed fuzzy as well so I went to the mirror and looked through the eye. Just as good as the other one in terns of acuity....at least when the haze goes away.

Now, I have a few follow-ups and have to put prednizone drops in my eyes every two hours (they sting, but make the eye feel better. And a few more drops. Drops, lottsa drops. I had on bottle of drops 15 years ago.

Maybe they haven't advanced the science so much...




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