a view through my own eyes

I think that for the first time that I can recall, that I am not a little bit frustrated, a tad browned off or even mildly narked about my eye; instead I am utterly fucking pissed off.

There I have said it and no I am not going to apologise for the language – this is after all a snapshot of how things are at this moment.

Three weeks post op and it still hurts, paracetamol and ibuprofen can be like taking smarties but have no affect, codeine does but that is special stuff. When I had the squint surgery or the cornea transplant it didn’t hurt as much as this or for so long and I really do not understand it.

Today I had a followup appointment at the hospital.

I explained this at the hospital, even they admitted that two weeks post op I should have felt pretty much fine. The blood has now cleared and they could have a look round and see how things really are. The surgery area is inflamed, very inflamed. It appears that I have reacted badly to the stitches used (the special stitches for people who are allergic to the other stitches and get growths like granulomas). These stitches are designed to dissolve in six weeks – today they were pulled out. I won’t go into details as it was not fun and it was not pretty and did involve me coming close to passing out (yeah I am a big woosie) but looking away was hardly an option.

So now I have four different types of eye drops (antibiotics, steroids and two types of lubricants) and am not allowed to do much at all for the next few days, during which time things should settle down.

Oh and because the stitches came out early things are held together but just a little bit of the grace of God.

Eye hurts, can’t sleep, keep taking the pain killers (solphadol with 30 mg of codeine) and had a telling off from my GP about going back to work before I was ready, particularly since she now knows what work was done – which she didn’t when I saw her last week – to be fair I didn’t know myself at the time. In any case going back to work for a bit yesterday was a good idea for me, as I did manage to demonstrate to myself that it definitely was not the best place for me to be.

So at the moment I can’t work with codeine in my system as it makes me wappy (lets say driving a car or a root prompt is not a good idea) and I can’t manage too well without it.

Sigh.

Back to the hospital today for the post operative checkup.

Fortunately things are looking pretty good considering what can be seen with the amount of blood in the way. The growth appears to have been removed but we won’t be totally sure for a couple of weeks. Before the op I was told that it would be a bit of an exploration as you can’t really see how bad the growth is until they start delving. In the end they had to detach one of the muscles from my eye, remove the growth and restitch the muscle back into place. This then explains why its so sodding painful to move my eyes at the moment. Codeine is my friend btw.

The cataract lens replacement is settling down nicely but will take a few weeks to be fully expanded and in place. The slightly differing colours from one eye to the other is down to the new lens being perfectly clear where the human lens in the other eye has a slight hue which is apparently normal and varies from one person to the next. In any case my vision is marvellous compared to before but won’t be able to get my glasses sorted out for a few weeks. Most importantly George is fine. Phew.

When I had the operation they did two procedures, the first was a cataract lens replacement due to the amount of steroid drops I have to take for the cornea and the second was to excise a granuloma that was a result of the squint surgery from a couple of years ago.

The new lens has done wonders, instead of foggy vision, I now have clear vision in my left eye and the power has been set a bit stronger than the right eye so a slight improvement. However the prescription in my glasses for that eye is now wrong and will need to be updated in a few weeks time. The bit that I have found really interesting is that I am currently perceiving that the colour balance in each eye is now slightly different. So my left eye sees things with a colder bluish tint where my right eye sees with a warmer golden tint. I suspect that a lot of this is down to my brain adjusting to having good vision in my left eye again but even so it is a bit odd.

As for the growth, well the eye is nicely bloodshot (will try and take a picture later) and as long as I don’t move my eyes at all it barely hurts. The last few words there are the key bit. In any case Wednesday morning I see my GP to hand over a load of paperwork from the hospital and Thursday afternoon I return to the hospital for the post operative checkup with the consultant, to see how things really are.

So 48 hours post op now. Yesterday afternoon felt pretty good until my eye started to ache.

Painkillers last night sort of helped until I woke up in the night with some rather weird dreams which left me in a rather confused state. Thankfully Sirius was his friendly self which seemed better than waking up mrspao and disturbing her as she really needed her sleep.

The GA has worn off, I know this as I can feel my eye (it hurts), I have nausea and I can feel down my throat where an airline was placed so I could breathe during the op (not mentioned the last bit before as there is only so much freakery that mrspao can take at any one time).

So now just gently dozing in the main, peering at email periodically as it keeps me in contact with my friends and listening to the radio.

Is what the other first 8am booked patient said as Mrspao and I settled down in the waiting area.

Mrspao was not impressed and went for a walk.

I think you get the tone of the nervousness felt by the other lad who was also being done that day as that was the tone that he generally carried on with, full of horror stories (we all have some about eye stuff I guess) and peculiar attitudes. When the nurse booked him in and asked whether he had transport arranged to go homewards he demanded that the hospital supply patient transport or a bed as walking back home was just not going to happen. I could tell that the staff were going to love him. The nervous energy seemed to radiate from him, now I am not saying by any means that I was at quite my most casual and laid back – but I don’t think I was too far from it.

After an hour of final-pre-op stuff they hauled him in to be knocked out. At which point they informed me that they were going to do me first but it was in everyone’s interest to just get him out of the way where he couldn’t wind us up and the other patients coming in and out to sort out initial pre-op stuff, so I would have to wait for a couple of hours. That was fine by me, I settled down with my book. Amusingly when they did my blood pressure and pulse, my BPM was back down to 59 from the 74 registered a couple of days previously at the pre-op appointment – so I must have been more relaxed. I certainly felt it.

I won’t go into the details of all and sundry, but at one point to give mrspao something to do instead of peering at the seed catalogue and knitting they asked her to put the pressure stockings (only knee high) on me. This led to much merriment from the other patients (mostly elderly cataract patients) as I announced that was I only used to Mrspao taking my clothes off of me.

So op done, still somewhat rather spaced out from legitimate use of heroinopiate based drugs, but who is complaining? The eye is sore which is hardly unexpected and I have a shield and pad over it at the moment which I have to take off today when I start putting the eye drops in. So a picture may appear later if it is suitably impressive looking.

At the moment, no lifting, carrying, bending, looking down or washing up for the next few days. Then back for a post op session on Thursday.