Eye Can See!
I was reading the titles on the drawers opposite me in the hallway, while waiting for my 2nd cataract: “Beaver handle”, “bulldogs” and a variety of hooks, slicers and punches. Nice.
Fortunately it was only afterwards, sitting on the other side of the hall and at the other end, for my 5-minute convalescence, that I noticed a bin labelled “ruptured globes”. Is that where the just excised bit of me will end up?
After the 1st op., I thought I knew what to expect. Sigh. Perhaps because the first one was at the crack of dawn, somewhat before dawn to be exact, and the 2nd was at the more civilized hour of nearly noon, but the whole getting-there thing was different. Or perhaps it’s because the province is imposing new restrictions. (I’m lucky to get this done before a serious clamp-down on everything.) Anyway, 1st time I strolled in the ER entrance and on up to the eye surgery. This time the actual entrance was being used (ER now exit) and we lined up at 6-ft intervals to get in and then directed to what once upon a time had been the info desk, ‘manned’ by little old volunteer ladies, where now temp gun was applied, we were told to discard the masks we came in with and were handed a new one by way of forceps – alright, kitchen tongs. Then lined up on distanced chairs in front of the gift shop to await our individual summons.
Upstairs was pretty much the same, only fewer and spacier patients. One tiny old woman was delayed as staff tried to get an acceptable blood pressure reading. Mine is up & down FTTT, but I managed to produce a good number (whew).
Felt the ativan this time – didn’t last time (maybe too anxious). In due time, after several dozen eye drops (and several times giving my name, birth date and eye-in-question, plus assurances that I had no symptoms) I got ushered to the surgery. No sign of surgeon. Got the impression that the Chinese guy in the room did the deed. Asked about that at the follow-up office visit this morning, and surgeon assured me he’d done it and the Chinese guy was the nurse. Whatever – it got done, with efficiency.
My driver, daughter Jennifer, had gone off to Costco and wasn’t at hand when I got wheeled downstairs. So I waited among the well-spaced silent masked people. After a while I went to the nearby coffee counter, where you order from a few feet away and the card-reader is on a post away from the counter, and got a mocha and, feeling sorry for myself, a gooey bar with carbs thru the roof. Returned to seat, where I lifted mask for a sip and a bite, quickly putting it back down, chewing behind cloth. Weird.
Then I dozed. Felt like an old person when ER staffer woke me to tell me my daughter was there.
My kid, who is nearly retirement age! I AM old.
Home and slept all day, except for getting up at intervals to tend to bodily functions, like eating and drinking. I often have trouble sleeping so I figured to then be up all night. Nope. Slept right thru, to the cats’ delight. Had difficulty in the morning getting up and out to make the hour-down-the-highway to the doc’s office. At least this time the follow-up appointment was such that I left in the daytime, or what passes for daytime in rain-forest winter. Had a nap when I got back! Making an effort to stay awake and do (light) stuff.
But I sure can see! I once again have 2020 vision! Which seems a bit unseemly in a body coming apart at the seams & otherwise seems 2020 only as in terms of this annus horribilis.
koshersalaami
12/08/2020 @ 8:48 pm
Good eyesight is fun, isn’t it? You better for distance or up close?
Myriad
12/09/2020 @ 3:39 pm
I opted for the basic lenses – first, they’re free, and second I never could adjust to bifocal glasses and have no desire to mess with weird implanted lenses (bifocal or one-of-each or ANYTHING weird). So I have perfect vision for close to top-of- yonder-mountain, but wearing specs for reading/computer.
Ron Powell
12/09/2020 @ 8:04 am
On the question of quality of life and standards of living,
he eyes have it!
Myriad
12/09/2020 @ 3:39 pm
Definitely – tho I’m working on the ear thing too
Jonna Connelly
12/09/2020 @ 10:36 am
Congratulations! I can’t wait till it’s my turn.
Myriad
12/09/2020 @ 3:40 pm
You’ll be happy! Practically guarantee!
12/09/2020 @ 11:10 am
Myriad, YAY!!!!
The year I became a vegetarian, we had to dissect a cow eyeball in biology. Will spare you the details, but will say that it’s good you did not look in that drawer labeled Ruptured Globes.
This (almost) sounds like a piece of cake. Ativan, btw rocks, as does fentanyl, which is the colonoscopy drug. One totally understands how people become addicted to it.
Thank you for making me less scared, this surgery is in the cards for me too.
Can you read this?
L E F O D F C T
Myriad
12/09/2020 @ 3:47 pm
I’ve become something of a salesperson for the operation. Persuaded one friend who is otherwise anti-conventional-medicine and have had some influence on anxious people on a Aging FB group. As an experience, it’s less unpleasant, really, than, say, getting dental x-rays (getting those things jammed into yer mouth). It’s quick, you feel only a bit of nothing-much, and do not (as I’d assumed) see someone coming at your eyeball with a knife – just vague shapes and colors – you’re in the operating room and back out in mere moments &, tho they want you to have a driver, you’re perfectly fine (and can even see with the new clarity thru the plastic eye-shield). Next morning, with this 2nd eye, I drove myself thru the rain for an hour down the highway for the check-up and back.
12/09/2020 @ 6:01 pm
I’m a crier at the dental xrays. Damn those hurt.
One of my friends, age 76, wearer of decades old LLBean clothing, thick specs, had the surgery a couple summers ago. He got to stop wearing his thick glasses, and soon came to our artist group in RayBan sunglasses. Next was a hair salon, not his wife’s cuts. He started wearing outfits you could almost but not quite call hip. I love that being able to see and getting to ditch the glasses made him reconsider his whole fashion approach. Maybe you’ll show up here in RayBans. I’m all in for it.
ArtWStone
12/09/2020 @ 1:53 pm
“The Chinese guy.”
ha!
You get a pass.
Glad the surgery worked out.
Myriad
12/09/2020 @ 3:55 pm
Yeah, well I hesitated mentioning the Chinese guy’s Chineseness, but I had been expecting to look up, with my shiny new eyeballs, into the Egyptian eyes of my surgeon. (Also revealing that I noticed the male in the room and assumed he was a doctor.)
Egyptian Eyes – either a band name or the title of a poem.
How do I know the surgeon is Egyptian? Our pharmacist told us – he’s from Egypt too. Dunno how we know that, except somehow my daughter got into a long talk with him one day about how we’d loved our trip to Egypt. (His brother back home, also a pharmacist, caught covid – but is recovering.)
A note about eyes – much more looking at them these days than ever, since that’s all we see of people’s faces. Visited my new NPR recently, mentioned I’d forgotten her name when phoning in, and she said understandable with a new face, at which I laughed…so she pulled down her mask for a moment so I could see that she had one.
jpHart
12/09/2020 @ 4:30 pm
Oi! Zumilicious sunflower seeded black – hole eye-center new star – SUN SUN – ships launching particulate hail gone blink – wink. So is the water safe, the worn surfboard waxed, other war paints: streaked smudged squinting with no argument apropos sex, religion, POLYMORPHOROUS perpetuity – Watts and soldier’s huts politics of three teetering towered worlds – $flag$ – florid feathers fall float flummoxed flora fauna flamed famished such as flax afire a lance – glance – glint of truth serene fresh as sunrise:
MYRIAD’S
WISE
EYES
HOLY
ROYAL
SPARKLE
koshersalaami
12/09/2020 @ 7:17 pm
I’d help you sell the operation. I spent a few years having a really hard time driving at night. It eventually got so dangerous I insisted on getting the operation. So much happier. So easy to drive at night now. Not painful.
JP Hart
12/03/2022 @ 5:22 pm
(3) ‘neath freezing or 29 degrees within Wisconsin — Midnight Cowboy loudly — over the shoulder epic what’s it? World Cup on the flat screen — wowser those searchlights. Yes the degree symbol is numeral + ALT 0176 yet this’N this’N refurbished DELL Inspiron has seen its day just about a year ago — LO;} Dion continues Abraham Martin and John — now dear Elton: It’s a little bit funny and I thought of you MYRIAD as Saturday’s sunlight attracts WHOA: a squirrel with his/its gaped chestnut to his/its eye glimmer upon the door glass quicker than lickety-split he glaces spins, scurries a dance-reverse-leap as such toward the sticks withered leaves and bramble of the winter’s day. Mr. Lightfoot sings: hear the mighty engines roar … she’ll be flying ‘or my home in ‘about three hours … O Myriad thought of your beautiful scripting as I’d crossed cursor paths with: The Yellowstone Supervolcano centered in northwestern Wyoming in 2018. (Josh Haner NYT) His volcano aerial as though a blue-blue retina — whoa still on the line — are you returning to Bindle-capital S-nitch? You’ve a unique ‘conversational empiricism’ beautiful stuff and we miss your seemingly spontaneous erudition — how cool WE MISS YOU. Cranking Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ I’m a little upset. If it makes you happy?