I’m back!

Here is what I look like after my surgery.

Just kidding! Obviously. My hair isn’t that big...

Any way, so I am finally ready to write about my surgery. Now, I have gotten a couple shudders when talking about the procedure, so if medical procedures, stuff to do with eyes or blood make you queasy, don’t read this entry. And let me apologize in advance, this is going to be a long wordy entry. Sorry, no pictures beyond the first one in this entry.

You’re not allowed to drive after this surgery, so my dad picked me up from work around 1 and drove us down to Wilshire and Gayley. We got down there with plenty of time to spare. My appointment was scheduled for 4:30 but they wanted me there at 2, “to fill out forms.”

Yeah, as to that, after being ignored for about an hour, it probably took me about 20 minutes to fill out these forms. And this was after the receptionist/office personnel person misspelled my first name and had to reprint the forms. I refused to sign two forms initially because, A) I was not given the opportunity to ask questions of the anesthesiologist as stated and B) The office person forgot to give me the form outlining my aftercare that the form was asking me to acknowledge receipt of.

Perhaps you might ask why I am so caught up on these small details. When this is my first experience with the surgery center, which is two floor above the doctor’s offices where I had my initial appointments, it does not inspire confidence in the place. This is my health and these are all legally binding documents. And I am not going to sign anything that is untrue because of the possible side affects that were listed for this procedure.

In truth, the doctor’s have to list every single possible side affect, even if there is no reported case and they have never seen the side affect themselves. For this procedure, I could have lost my vision completely and/or required corneal replacement surgery if anything had gone wrong. That is of course, the worst case scenario. But this was the first operation besides having permanent teeth removed that I have ever had done. I have my tonsils, my appendix and all other various body parts that can be removed without dying. The last hospital stay of any kind that I had was for my birth and I don’t remember that.. Needless to say, I was a little anxious.

So moving right along. After a couple hours of hanging out in the reception room, watching other people go in and watching other’s coming in to pick up their loved ones, the nurse finally called me in. Her name was Marlowe and I could not have asked for a sweeter or nicer nurse to look after me. But I get ahead of myself.

She took me into a changing room and asked me to remove any jewelry that might get in the doctor’s way – my necklace and three earrings. She also had me place my sweater and purse in one of those patient personal belongs bags and gave me a medical robe to put on over my clothes and a huge shower cap/medical hair cover thingy to put on over my hair. After that, she took me back to a recovery/prep area with about four gurneys. She had me lay down on one and then got me a blanket since it was chilly in the room. She even gave me an extra blanket since my feet were cold – as usual.

The doctor came back to check on me and they marked my forehead with a asterisk in marker above my right eye so they would know which one to work on. Marlowe then put the IV connecting tube into the back of my right hand. She tape me up and was beginning to walk away, when I suddenly felt something wet and cold run on my hand. I had blood from the IV connection tube running across the back of my hand and down my wrist. Lots of blood.

“Umm, excuse me, I’m having a problem, I’m bleeding.”

Marlowe was startled and came back immediately. She came back so quickly, she didn’t even put gloves back on or bring anything with her to stop the bleeding. At this point, I’ve gotten blood on the sheets I’m lying on. But it was okay, since Marlowe grabbed the blanket I was lying under and used it to apply pressure to stop the bleeding. She told me not to look so I don’t pass out. To which I replied that it was okay, I donate blood regularly so this was nothing. We kept chatting as she worked on my hand. Marlowe use to work in the emergency room and she said that most people, especially guys, faint at the sight of their own blood or start thrashing around. She was impressed on how calm I stayed. I told her that I knew that they (meaning the nurses on duty) would take care of me and that my panicking and thrashing around would only make her job harder.

It wasn’t that much blood but it was not a pretty sight. Marlowe switched out the tube to attach the IV to, she told me that in the 7 years she has been doing IV’s, this is the first time she has seen anything like this. She guessed that the little tube thing was defective, which is why it allowed the blood to come out the end. She cleaned up my skin and re-taped the tube. She checked it before she walked away to throw all the sterile wrappings away, then came back and attached my IV and then switched the sheets and blankets out for me.

Everything else was calm after that, the nurse who would actually be in surgery with me, Kathy, came out and introduced herself and Marlowe came over and put a couple different drops in my right eye. Thinking back on it, I think one was a numbing drop and the other was to dilate my pupil since my vision was a little wanky after that. The Doc wrote up my prescriptions and Marlowe took them out to my dad so he could call them in or go downstairs to the pharmacy in the building to get them filled while they were working on me. Before I knew it, Kathy came to walk me to the operating room.

“It’s just down the hall here, first door to your left,” as she trailed behind me carrying my IV.
Uh, did I forget to mention that I don’t tell my left from my right very well?

I think I cracked a job about not realizing I would be expected to tell my right from my left before the surgery, not a very good joke to be truthful. But I think they could tell I was a little anxious.

They had me lay down with a pillow under my knees and my head in this molded head rest. Kathy came and took my glasses and I hung out while they got everything set up in the room. I think the introduced me to the anesthesiologist but I was kind of not taking much in at that point, being mostly blind. I was okay, until they put the restraint strap over my legs. That is when I started crying.

They asked me how I was and I told them I was anxious and Kathy rubbed my shoulder and told me that was pretty common. Dr. Maloney was very nice about it too. I am sure they see a lot of that. They had the anesthesiologist drug me up through the IV and they began.

Now, from here on in, things are a little foggy, I know that they inserted a frame to keep my eye open and at one point, I could feel the doctor working on my eye and they had to give me more anesthetic. That really sucked but at least I know to speak up sooner and what to say for next time.

From looking at my eye later, they made a small incision at the top of my Iris, inserted the lens, attached it to my cornea somehow and then stitched the incision up. Yeah, I could feel him pulling the stitches closed – in my eye. I don’t know if I could have gone through it if I had know all that it entailed. Sometimes, I think it is better to just go into things blindly, at least for me. I feel the same way about childbirth – Don’t show me those miracle of birth videos or I will never be able to go through it. Just let me get pregnant, gestate the baby and not have an option when it comes time to pop the kid out. There are not a lot of options once you start giving birth, you can’t return the kid at that point.

But I digress. They taped a clear eye shield over my eye and wheeled me out to the recovery area. I think I was the last patient for the day. They talked to me and asked me to respond to them and keep telling me to take deep breathes. I have never felt so out of it in my life. Or so relieved to be done with anything. I just wanted to go home and rest but I couldn’t imagine getting up. It took me a while to come around, I remember closing my eyes because it was easier than keeping the right one open and I couldn’t see out of the left one. I don’t think I had the coordination to put my contact in at that point. I don’t think I slept but anything is possible. My eye felt funny and not too good, so when Marlowe offered me painkillers, I said yes. My stomach didn’t feel great so Marlowe gave me Tylenol instead of Vicoden. She also gave me apple juice and peanut butter crackers! Yay – treats!

Skipping ahead, on Tuesday, I had a follow up appointment. My vision was 20/50 at that point, they liked the placement of the lens and there was no change in the pressure in my eye and there was no inflammation for them to worry about. My eye was bright red from all the blood trapped in it, but that is suppose to go away after a while. I still have some of the red in my eye this week but it does look better, according to mi familia. Of course, the red part that is left is the part in view, the rest of the eye is clearing up nicely.

There were a couple of cool things about the surgery. When I looked really closely at my eye, I could see where they made the incision and stitched up the cut. There was a small line/ indentation on my Iris. Cool. And one day at work, I was looking out the reflective windows and with the sun shining in, I could actually see the lens in my eye in my reflected image.

So currently, I have one contact in and one “Bionic” eye, as my brother calls. It’s nice to wake up in the middle of the night and be able to see my clock and not walk into my furniture as I stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The last couple days, my eye has been feeling itchy and dry in the evenings, but I guess that is normal and can continue for a while as I heal.

So tomorrow, I have a second check up appointment. I am very excited to find out how my vision checks out now and to find out when we are going to do the next eye.

And I promise not to write as long an entry for a while. For all three of my regular readers. Well, make that four.