The day started off a little slow as the machine they needed to use broke and they had to bring in a new one. Waiting was horrible, because I still wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything. I didn’t get called in for the pre-surgery stuff until About 3 1/2 hours later, and was getting cranky from being awake for almost 6 hours without anything to eat or drink. They finally let me go back once my Mom and I came back to the surgery center to do the pee-in-a-cup thing, and to also prove I’m not preggers. I came back into the waiting room until the heavens lifted and they called my name back there.
i got all settled in my Lay-Z-boy type chair and put on the hospital smock. I think the nurses put about 20 drops in my right eye, making it more numb as the drops went on. I met the anesthesiologist, and he was nice. We made small talk as he asked me health questions, and that’s when the nurse walked up and said, “Oh yes, your pregnancy test came back negative.” Oh well gee thanks! They inserted the IV (always more difficult than I remember, and I have a huge bird tattoo on my back) and then pumped me full of a local anesthesia, and afterwards I don’t remember much, except immediately feeling like I’d had a nice little party all to myself, and seeing some bright Aurora Borealis-looking lights and I was out.
I woke up in the recovery area with people all around. (I think with my clothes on already, which is weird to me. I don’t know who dressed me, but somebody somewhere got to see me half nakie.) And the moment I realize I can read the numbers on the clock about 20 feet in front of me, I started to cry. The rep from the lenses they used was there, the doc was there, the nurses were there, all watching me bawl my eyes out over something that people take advantage of every day. It amazed me. I don’t remember how I got to the car, but I guess I walked. My Mom drove me home and I was reading signs all the way there in pure astonishment. we stopped at Moe’s because I was starving, and I laid into some steak nachos once we got home. I had to wear my oh-so-cool hospital sunglasses all the way home, too.
And then I crashed on the couch pretty hard, waiting for Oscar to come pick me up.
A very successful surgery, as I found out the next morning at my post-op visit. I see 20/20 out of my right eye. Something I’ve never been able to see before. As I said, colors are brighter, I can read from a distance, I haven’t had to slouch over in my chair at work to read my computer screen.
Although, that’s the only complaint I could possibly have in my recovery process. I sit in front of a computer at work. Like, my job depends on me being able to do research online, work in Word and Excel, and constant emails. This does not bode well for the vision, and has given me what I have dubbed “funhouse vision.” This is what happens when your right eye is now 20/20, but your left is still 20/80 or so, and you’re trying to focus on the computer screen or other things. I think maybe the best way to describe it is like wearing 3-D glasses without the weird colors. Your vision is just a little bit funky. My mornings are ok, but my afternoons have brought me more breaks and a little bit of guilt because I literally can’t focus on the computer screen without the numbers and figures kind of “dancing around” on me. This is normal, I found, but still irritating nonetheless.
So, 3 weeks and 1 day and counting.
I can’t wait.
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