Wednesday

Call me weird, but I have been genuinely curious about what eye surgery would be like. I've had plenty of operations in my life -- ones that cut me up solid -- so I am no stranger to hospitals or blades and knives that snip and chop away at your insides. But a sharp instrument that would dissect your eye? That was hard to imagine. Your eye, forced into an open position, awaiting the arrival of something that would pierce its wet surface -- like, how is it supposed to react? Wouldn't instinct prevail? Wouldn't you fight tooth and nail to keep that dagger from reaching your eyeball?

Perhaps it would be a stretch to say that I was looking forward to today's cataract surgery (with a laser assist, followed by an implant of the newest lens, though not of a multifocal type), but it is definitely true that I had an unhealthy eagerness to get to it as soon as possible. Because, well, I was curious.

No breakfast today (not allowed!) and a quick walk to feed the animals.

 

("hey, thanks for stirring up the dirt in the pots for us!")

And then, the trip to the Surgical Center. This is a place in our hospitals and clinics system where elective surgeries are performed. Eye stuff. Carpal tunnel release. Stuff you can do on an outpatient basis. Ed dropped me off, I went inside.

And the waiting began. I hadn't quite realized how much waiting. Perhaps everyone needs many many rounds of eye drops, or maybe it's because I skipped days of it that are typically required prior to surgery, but my oh my, we went through a lot of drips and drops. 

After several hours, the doc came in, discussed once more what's coming out and what's going in and at this point I was also offered one valium. You know, that woozey pill to make you think life is good and that you could easily climb Mt Everest if you just put your mind to it.

That's it? -- I asked. You're coming at my eye with a knife and I get one valium? I had hoped for something more trippy, so that I could not only imagine climbing Mt. Everest, but maybe even think that I could paint rainbows with my bare hands or at least run like crazy through a field of Alpine flowers. Well, no matter. I popped the valium, which had no effect on me whatsoever. Maybe it was only a pretend valium. I understand hospitals are stingy with those sorts of things. With good reason of course.

So now comes the trip to the laser machine room where they basically zap every offending piece of nonsense out of your eye with this huge laser zapper. Only they couldn't quite fit it into my eye. They assured me that the eye size was just fine, but the socket -- not so large. We went around this for a while until finally it was in and the zapping began. And here's the good part: even though your eye is wide open, you don't actually see stuff! I was told to look for the little oval shape and stay with my focus on that, and this kept me plenty busy as the little oval shape kept changing colors. 

After a while, the doc and the staff proclaimed total success and I got moved to a second surgical room. Here, they played 60s pop music and I noted that this was a good call, given the demographic that typically gets cataract surgery. I hummed along to "I Got You Babe" and so did someone else in the room. Maybe the surgeon, maybe the nurse, hard to tell.

Now came the implant of this new lens that is supposed to be quite the advanced technology, even if it doesn't offer good reading vision. What I found out today is that it also doesn't offer great super distance vision, but the doc reassured me that most of us dont really require great super distance vision, given that we are not football players or anything. I found that to be interesting reasoning. (In fact, I've always had pretty good distance vision. I'm the one who can spot a brown sandhill crane against a brown cornfield far far away, even as Ed struggles to do the same. Will it now be worse? So that we both will be mediocre sandhill crane spotters going forward?) The doc said we mostly use our midrange vision and this new lens is great for that. Well okay, if you say so. (I do trust my doc totally. She went to good schools and has been doing this for several decades and has the right serious surgeon's bedside manner, with just a touch of a smile. Nothing too big to make you think she's trying to sell you something.)

This second and final stage is where you see beautiful multicolored stars! I mean, it's like a very miniature fireworks display. This is also where they offer you an additional sedative. I dont know why. It would seem to me that scraping your eyeball with a laser is more of a candidate for easing your thoughts than implanting a small piece of plastic, but I went along. And of course, this had no effect on me either. Perhaps it made me more chatty because I distinctly remember my doc telling me to be quiet, as she needed my mouth not to move while she was pushing in the plastic.

And then I was back in my recovery room and Ed drove up and we went home.

Yes, it's a couch day for me. I mean, of course it is! But I did first sit down to breakfast. At around 2 pm. And I lit a candle, because, well, you've got to give some encouragement to spring this year and I figured one bearing the name "Bright," with hints of citrus, would do the job nicely.

And in the eve, well, call it a birthday eve. The flowers come from a guy who really wasn't one to celebrate anything, until, well, several prompts caused him to change his mind.

It's been quite the April thus far. Unusual and strangely beautiful.

With love...