Thanks to the side effects of Promacta, yesterday, I underwent (first of two) cataract surgery.
The pre-op was almost the worst part. Jeez. How many drops can you put in a fat old lady’s eye before said eye floats away? And then, you wait, wait, wait and get bored, bored, bored and then there’s more drops, repeat ad infinitum. Next time, I will keep my phone and glasses at hand and get some reading done.
Rolled into surgery, and they wash your eyes. Both the one that’s been numbed to an nth degree, and the poor innocent bystander eye. Ever get a little bit of soap in your eye? Try having your fucking eyeball washed! And no, the numbing stuff doesn’t seem to reach every nook and cranny no matter how much they put in.
I opted for sedation (hey, they already put an iv line in, why let it go to waste?). And I will do so next time too – because it doesn’t put you to sleep or anything, it just takes the edge off the nervous. All nervous should have slightly rounded edges, so you don’t hurt yourself when you bump into it.
And I was warned about this by the pre-op nurse (I loved her, she did not lie and say “a little tug”, “a little pinch”, nope, if it was going to hurt she fucking let you know) … the worst pain was yet to come. They, like any surgery, drape your face. Then they use tape to hold that drape in place – lots of tape. Lots of really good-stick-to-this tape (not sure, but it could have been Gorilla brand duct tape). And then when they finish, they don’t warn you or anything, they just RIP all that tape off of your poor face. Motherfucker.
You go to post-op (which is the same as pre-op), and you can have water or juice (apple juice please) and cheez-its or a nutri-grain bar (nutri-grain please). They pull the iv line out. And send you on your way.
They wanted to put my fat old lady ass into a wheelchair but I chose to walk it (well, limp out, my knee has become increasingly unhappy, to the point where I rely heavily (heavily, get it?) on my Ben Franklin cane), because that’s the kind of tough fat old bitch I am.
They also tried to give me a mug (with their name on it) containing flowers. I declined. You bring flowers into our house and the cats say, “For me?” and you end up with flowers everywhere.
Last night, everything seemed so blurry … until I realized, I had my glasses on – correcting the vision in my right eye, that no longer needed correction. D’oh. Took off the glasses and the blurriness vastly improved.
My pupil still seems to be enamoured of the dilated look, and light is somewhat painful, and lucky us, we chose a home that has lots and lots of windows.
I also made sure they gave me one of those plastic eye shields because the night before surgery, I woke up and Berta (all 19+ pounds of her) was laying right on my face. The only reason I could breath was my Cpap nasal pillows which were pushed a goodly distance up my nostrils, but still working.
Just got back from my post-op visit. Vision in right eye is now 20/25! And is expected to keep improving! The reaction to light (blue glow) and the “bruised” feeling in my eye is perfectly normal and very tolerable, and should get better each day. And they popped out the right lens in my glasses, so I no longer have to go around with my right eye squinched shut while I do anything that requires vision – like blogging – with my left eye!
Can’t lift more than 20 pounds – lucky you, Berta, you just slipped in under the limit; and I’m not supposed to bend down for a week. The doctor showed me how I should squat down to pick things up. I showed him the cane I have to use because of my blown out knee. Yeah. No squats are happening.
And hallelujah, I am cleared to drive!
Good news for the dear husband because you know this fat old lady has a full calendar between doctors and errands and such! Is cataract surgery a piece of cake? Sure, if you baked that cake from scratch with a wood-burning stove and no electricity.
Is it worth doing? Absolutely.
Thoughts from a Fat Old Lady 
You reminded me of the experience of cataract surgery nearly 20 years ago
I think it’s pretty amazing how this surgery has improved over the years. It just seems to get better and better. I remember my grandma’s cataract surgery (40+ years ago) – having to help her with hard contacts; how long it took to heal, etc. My eyes are still struggling to adjust to all the light but according to my doctor – it isn’t from dilation, it’s because the cataract was blocking so much of it before! Go figure.
I have cataracts, so I’ll be having the surgery sometime, at some point, I don’t know when (they’re not that bad yet). Thanks for describing all this – it gives me an idea of what it’s going to be like. Although if, as you say, the surgery keeps getting better and better, who knows what it will be like at that point?
Indeed. At this place, they sit you in a chair in pre-op, and you just stay in that chair – they roll it into the OR, it flattens out, it has a U-shaped headpiece to keep your head in place. When you’re done, the chair goes back to being a chair and they roll you back to pre/post op. Easy-peasy. Who knows, in a few years, you’ll be able to do it over the Internet!