Into every long life some ‘go ahead and cut’ moments will come. At least, if the life is worth living, which is to say moderately adventurous. Sometimes you’re going to need a surgeon, whether literally or figuratively. This won’t be the first – or for that matter the tenth – time I’ve laid down next to a table full of knives.
It’s one thing to accept that, and quite another to want to hear the details. One of the things that annoyed me about last week’s trip to the ophthalmologist was some lady’s insistence on giving me an actual flip-chart lecture on the blow-by-blow procedure for cataract surgery. It comes down to something I might want to do to you if I found you had beaten my dog to death with my favorite motorcycle – except I wouldn’t use anesthesia, and wouldn’t demand that you pay me for it. Oh, I know someone who has had the thing done, and she speaks of it quite casually. Intellectually I know everything will be fine – better than fine. Viscerally, I’m more than moderately skeptical that I’ll ever see out of that eye again.
Not that I can see much out of it now.
Like I said in a early post the wife has dome it twice and she really is wimpy. But for me I’d rather have two heart surgery’s and two spinal surgery s (which I did last year) than lie there awake while someone is tearing my eyeballs apart.
I can’t even put eye drops in my eyes without someone holding my eye open. Could never put contacts in, ever. So I can relate, and yes I would pass on the step by ster presentation of what they intend to do also.
Isn’t it funny how in some cases we can’t get enough information… and sometimes they give us far too much? No happy medium…
Funny story… I was on the table, draped and all the rest for the first one – the doctor and I were busy discussing the procedure, something I’d witnessed many times, and suddenly his scrub nurse butted in to suggest that we quit TALKING about it and get busy with the doing part. The doctor was a little embarrassed, I think, but he did an excellent job, and we laughed about it afterwards.
You can request sedation for the procedure, but it really isn’t traumatic at all. The eye itself is anesthetized, and all you feel is a slight tug where they have propped your lids open.
The tricky part comes after you get home. Do follow the post op instructions faithfully. You will not be able to bend over or lift things for a day or two, and that’s very important. Just plan on resting and getting plenty of good, hot liquids inside of you. Dehydration is a real bad thing at that stage.
I’m just so glad you are finally going to get this done. Don’t worry about it… you have lots of good thoughts and positive energy coming your way. 🙂
As greg suggested, I can’t think of too many things scarier than having my eyes messed with, but all the anecdotal tales are SO positive that I hope you can put aside the anxiety. DH had his cataracts done about 10 years ago and it went just fine. Technological progress is an amazing thing and the benefits just keep getting better.
About that too much info thing. Many many years ago my Dad was having a heart bypass and beforehand was supposed to get all that info about it. He and I must have covered every inch of the hospital while avoiding that info nurse. But we succeded and never did get the details until afterward. Silly memory.
Mine have all been in the category of “Go ahead and set/splint/stitch back together.” but even then, yeah, TMI. Just fix the goddamned thing already, I don’t need the details. That said, my mother had cataract surgery in her 80s and sailed right through it. You’ll be fine.
If stats can be of any comfort, cataract surgery is VERY safe. A study in the UK found just 96 claims filed in roughly 2 million procedures. It doesn’t get much better than that in medicine.
Good luck!
Uncle Joel, you may have mentioned & I failed to notice, or you just may not have given specifics: is the damned/blessed event soon?
Unrelated to that (you can trust me, honestly. I was a sailor, & we are visig — um, paragons of virtue); given the options of cashews, pecans, or peanuts, which would you like best? Nothing for you, of course, I’m thinking of the chickens. Really.
The event is tomorrow at 9:05 AM. Because they hate me. I have to be on the road before seven.
And I’ve always been a fan of peanuts, myself, though I don’t turn my nose up at much.
I’m so severely eye phobic – anyway, I haven’t read to much and probably won’t for a while just because “ew”….But I wanted to wish you all luck and an easy time thru this.