I’ve now had my second surgery. The right eye was different from the left. They had been in a great hurry for the left eye. It felt like a battlefield operation or something. The right eye was much more leisurely. I waited for an hour just to go back into the next waiting room. One nurse went through the process in a leisurely fashion, with long waits between the various bits.

Then she left me in a darkened, curtained room looking at a monitor.

I should definitely have taken my knitting.

The monitor showed my blood pressure when they had taken in a bit earlier: 144/77. I was obviously stressed out. In fact, waiting around for surgery is quite stressful.

But it also showed three other numbers. One of them stayed around 77. One was about 96. The third ranged from 5 to 250. I don’t know what any of them meant. I didn’t die, so I guess it was all okay.

During the waiting, which went on for another hour or so, I heard lots of things. “NO, NO, NO, that’s not GOOD for JOJO!” shrieked another patient. The staff discussed the fact that an alarm kept going off, apparently because of a patient’s pacemaker, and someone asked for a hammer in what must have been a joking tone. Someone else’s family member came into my area, and a couple of electricians worked on the electrical outlets while I lay corpse-like on a gurney.

At last, the anesthetist came in and gave a bit of a speech. He told me that he was there to make sure I was safe and comfortable. I was wheeled into an operating room. My recollection of the left eye was that they pushed me into the hallway and the anesthetist told me to look for marshmallows.

In fact, quite a lot of things were done while I was paying attention that must have been done for the left eye after I was no longer fully alert. There was lidocaine gel and cleaning of the eye and all sorts of stuff.

On the other hand, I don’t remember any light shows from the right eye surgery. There was no pain involved, which was a very good thing from my point of view.

Altogether, I preferred the left eye.

However, I can now see very well and I am very happy about that.