I fasted, worked, and cleaned until time to go to the surgery center. I was mentally braced for a long wait because that is so often how things are in medical situations, but not in this case.
It was brisk. They called me back just a few minutes after the check in and pay episode. They put me on a gurney — I didn’t even have to take my shoes off — and got right with it, putting in an IV, splashing eye drops into my eye from an impressive height, and even putting things in my nose. I don’t know what that’s called or what if was for, but #1 daughter thought it was a monitor of some kind.
They brought #1 daughter in, assured her that they had talked with me about how to take care of myself after the operation, and gave her a paper to sign agreeing that she had gotten the information.
She hadn’t.
They were a bit stroppy with her for insisting on having the information before signing a paper that said she had it. We got past that and they gave me some “conscious anesthesia” and wheeled me into another room.
This is when it became interesting. The preliminaries up to that point had been uncomfortable and weird rather than interesting. The anesthetist had told me to look at the shapes that looked like marshmallows, but there was a whole lot to look at. Sometimes it looked like the images from deep space.
Occasionally I saw the marshmallows and tried to look at them, but just as often there would be a field of red or shocking pink.
That was the best part.
Then we were through. They told me I had done well, though I had done nothing. Maybe that was the good part.
They taped a shield over my eye.
#1 daughter brought the car around, we stopped to pick up a salad at Panera, and she drove me home.
A friend of mine had told me that she went home after her cataract surgery and went to bed. The next day, she felt fine. So I ate my salad and went to bed.
It is now the morning after the surgery. I can see. Not perfectly. For one thing, I still have a shield over my eye. For another, this lens is for close up. In a couple of weeks they will do the other eye with a lens for far away.I am typing this without reading glasses and I can see it pretty clearly.
Colors are much brighter. Objects are three dimensional. I had not realized that I had lost much of that with losing the sight in my left eye.
Frankly, I am very pleased that I didn’t die or anything. I was also very happy that there wasn’t any pain involved. Improved vision will be a plus.
Tea and breakfast now, and then I have a check up with the optometrist. No shower allowed, no make up, no driving. No alcohol, but I didn’t have mimosas on the menu anyway.