One-Eyed & Euphoric
Back to being two-eyed tomorrow. Cataract surgery this morning. Was fretting about it for a while, finally asked for appointment, got date mid-December – then got offer of cancellation, eliminating a whole month of fretting…and then new appointment was suspended for several days because hospital was limiting patients (viral outbreak in that city). Then on Friday morning got the go-ahead. (Then a lot of hoo-haw trying to get the pre-op drops because fax didn’t go thru to pharm, and doc office closed Friday afternoon, but coordinator went in Sat morning and faxed for me again, and the pharm got it at noon and phoned me to hurry and get it cuz they close at one, whew.)
Dreaded the surgery because EYEBALL. Imagined lying there seeing knife descending and stabbing me in the (did I mention) EYEBALL… Never mind that duration was 7-10 minutes. But they give us an ativan, dozens of various drops, some of which cause eyeball to lose all feeling, eye is propped open, and on the table I saw only blurred light and colors, felt some slight vague something…and sure enough, 7 to 10 min. Slap a shield on it, wheel me down to the entrance, expel me. (No, actually, some recovery time, phoned my driver for me [daughter] and everyone was very nice.)
Home 3 hours after leaving, with 1/2 hr trip each way. Dozed. It had been unearthly early, and I’d had no coffee (so I could sneak away w.o. digestion & bladder noticing). Now it’s afternoon and I had a balanced meal of potato, soup and yogurt. And coffee.
Haven’t peaked yet…but I’m seeing out at the edges…there’s a translucent band across the middle of eye-shield, but vision seeps in (out?) at the edges. (I’d imagined a black-out of that eye for a day or so…but no…just a ‘band-aid’.)
Eye two in a couple weeks, if this one heals fine – virus permitting.
11/17/2020 @ 9:11 pm
Thanks for posting this. I have the oddest connection and interest. I hope you’re not offended.
I had a Jack Russell Terrier named Barkley. He lived to 17 years if age, and that ended, sadly, in 2019. Barkley was a tough old cuss. He was the guy my wife and I affectionately called “Bitey”. We’d play with him, and for terriers, play is full scale war. So…to be brief, they might clamp down on a toy, or they might clamp down on your finger. Made little difference to them. When he got sloppier with his game, we’d say, “he’s becoming Bitey”, or “Bitey is here.”
As he got older, he developed cataracts. He was maybe around 14 years of age. I weighed whether or not to get his the surgery and decided not to. It wasn’t the cost. He had insurance. Sadly, he had better insurance than many Americans. My concern was putting him under for an operation at his age. Ultimately I decided not to.
His eyesight continued to diminish, but his activity did not. So, Barkley would get to the top of a staircase, and not being able to see the first stair, or the distance, he would just dive whole staircase. We’d hear a thud and go running for him. Eventually we bought gates for all the staircases so he would break himself.
Barkley had two theme songs for different stages of his life. I play guitar (a little) and when I would play “Brainstew” by Green Day, Barkley would get in front of the amp and just go to town. He even went around behind it once and took a bite out of the speaker. Toward the end of his life when he was diving staircases, his theme song became “Unsteady” by X Ambassadors. I can’t play the song around my wife because it makes her cry.
And this is the last part of my meander. Recently, on Election Day, I feel like I got a message from Barkley. I was walking Miles, our 17 month old Lab puppy up at our lake. One of the songs that came on was “Unsteady”. My wife wasn’t around and I had headphones in, so I listened. It felt like Barkley (Bitey) was talking to me about democracy. It says, “hold on to me cuz I’m a little unsteady…”. Then, later on the walk, one of the last songs that came up was “Brainstew”. So, I don’t believe much in spirits. I just make them up on my own to suit me. On Election Day, it was Barkley who reached out.
So, anyway, I have not talked to anyone who has had cataract surgery since, oh, the late 80’s. My grandmother. I had no real connection to the experience then. But, hearing you talk about it now is very reassuring. I hope you have a pleasant recovery. And if either of my dogs lives long enough this time…I will go for the surgery. (Myself too, I suppose.)
11/17/2020 @ 9:21 pm
…so he would not*…break himself. You probably got that anyway, but we are talking about Barkley and I can’t leave it like that.
11/17/2020 @ 9:31 pm
I read it right! Just now absorbing that he was a Jack Russell. Hat off to you! They’re maniacs.
11/17/2020 @ 9:22 pm
Ah, poor Bitey.
I had a cat that went blind (suddenly – probably a stroke) and she managed miraculously for the time she had left. No staircases involved tho.
People who have had cataract surgery assured me that it not a bad experience at all, but I am a chicken and, also, EYEBALL. But it was really not a bad thing at all and I won’t have any trepidation when the next one gets done (prob in a month or so, after this one is pronounced good). When I walked out of the op room, I high-fived the old man waiting his turn. “Nothin’ to it,” I told him. (Hah – he was Chinese and had his daughter with him to translate, but I’m pretty sure he got the message.)
11/17/2020 @ 9:41 pm
THAT made my day! I bet that made him feel so good. If he passed those good vibrations on to someone else, we will be a friendlier world in the space of a week.
11/17/2020 @ 10:28 pm
Made me happy too!
11/18/2020 @ 12:06 am
Did my second eye in January. As surgeries go, this one’s easy.
11/18/2020 @ 10:50 am
For just a moment I felt like I had traveled back in time.
It was nice to see the exchanges of familiar people.
Glad to know of you getting your sight back to normal Myriad. You need it for that art collection you have been accruing, which I know something about.
It was good to know know they etymology of your pseudonym Bitey and even better to read that you have kept at your guitar playing. Being a youngster to me it seems your tastes vary some from mine. Last night for our 41st anniversary we watched a 2 hour live stream of the player who has had my heart for decades, especially so since I was lucky enough to have spent an afternoon with him and even teach him one of my own songs. That was in the mid-70’s. The world knows him as Taj Mahal.
11/19/2020 @ 9:42 pm
Whoa, you met Taj Mahal…and even gave him a song!
Yeah, hah – been looking at my art collection with new appreciation!
11/18/2020 @ 1:37 pm
Congratulations, Myriad. Your experience reflects that of everyone I’ve known who’s had the surgery – piece of cake. The eye doc can still improve my prescription so I don’t need the surgery but people I’ve known have also said their vision improved a lot with it.
And dogs, you say, dogs? My Lula lived to 18, blind as a bat from cataracts for several years. Her eyes looked like white marbles in the end. It barely slowed her down, she would very gently run into things and find her way around that way. Steps, no problem. She knew where they were. We’d go to the dog park and often there would be a mob of youngsters being rowdy near the entrance. She flawlessly navigated around them, leaving them plenty of space to not notice her, and got about her running around business. All heart that dog.
We had stopped going to the park because I didn’t think she cared but started again when I got another dog. The first time we drove there, Lula, blind as a bat, knew when we were within a few blocks of it and started barking like a crazy person, thrilled to be back.
Finally the cataracts got hard and leathery, one so hard it caused the lens to tip and she could see light. But the vet said the next step was glaucoma and pain and I let her go.
But seriously, something’s going on here.
11/19/2020 @ 9:43 pm
Poor Lula. I had an old dog whose eyes were turning to blue marbles, but he still could see reasonably. Eventually too much congestive heart failure…
11/19/2020 @ 12:08 pm
Reading the posts, scrolling down, so I already read about how well the surgery went. You looked adorable in the pink raincoat. It’s hot rhododendron pink, so I guess my cataracts aren’t that bad!
11/19/2020 @ 9:46 pm
I kinda “improved” the color of my coat on the computer – it’s really a fairly bright red, but I decided to augment it anyway, just on principle, to emphasize the BRIGHT.
Speaking of which – it’s almost painful to look at my Christmas cactus…which is approximately the color of my coat as rendered here.