It's been a week, and I know I should update everyone (whoever it is that reads this blog).
I'm not even sure where to start. I didn't sleep much the week leading up to the surgery. And I slept 30 minutes total post-operatively. I was willing myself to see, but everything was blurry and light hurt my head and moving much made me dizzy. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The nurse who prepped me for surgery graduated from IWU. She was very sweet, and I realized how important it is for nurses in a surgery center to have a certain caring, gentle demeanor. I found out, yet again, that I have terrible hand veins for placing IVs, so my elbow one had to do, meaning it would be potentially awkward for the surgeon to work around that. I had dilating drops in my eyes, and was left to lay there for at least an hour, maybe more, prior to entering the surgery room. Kyle came back with me, after a while, and waited. I was so very relaxed. No drugs at that point and I was almost asleep. I think it was due to the fact I hadn't slept well in days and I had to keep my eyes shut, despite all that was going on around me.
All the patients were in one big room, separated by curtains. The man on my left, who was next to the door into the surgery area, was snoring softly when I got there. The woman on my right had a low, scratchy voice. Kyle confirmed when he arrived that I was the youngest by 40 to 50 years. Dr. Price specialized in cornea transplants and does quite a few cataract removals, too. So that definitely plays to a certain demographic. There were only two ICL (Implanted collamer lens) patients that day. Myself and another young-ish woman. I never saw her, but heard her arrive shortly before I was wheeled away for surgery.
I wasn't too anxious as I waited because everyone had assured me that the sedative they were to give me would make me not care what they were doing to my eyes. My coworker, L., who's had this type of surgery, indicated that I shouldn't be alarmed if my vision went out in the eye they were working on for a few seconds. That is normal, she said. So I was prepared for that, as well. I was very nearly asleep when they came in and said, alright, here we go....and I was off.
Then it was all bright lights and poking and prodding. An automatic blood pressure band was tightened around my right arm while another nurse hooked up heart monitors in three places. They began the drip of sedative into my IV, while painting something cold and sticky across my eyes and eyebrows and nose bridge.
It seemed to be a bit of time when the Dr. came in and said they were about to get started. They slammed something big and plastic, although sticky in places, across my face and peeled back one eye hole, which they quickly filled with utensils and tools. They propped my eye open with a clamp and that's when I started freaking out.
I won't give all the details I remember because I don't want to remember is and I'm hoping given enough time it will all disappear. But, let me just say the "happy juice" wasn't strong enough and while the numbing drops worked in my eyes, I knew what was going on. I was gripping the sheet in a ball with my right hand and the side of the bed with my left. My back was arching against what they were doing and my breath -- which was all very shallow and contained underneath this plastic covering on my face -- was panicked. A few imes I wimpered, and while I don't really know why, I do remember this exchange (it occured once with each eye).
Lana: wimper Dr.: Can you feel that? Are you ok?
Lana: Well, it doesn't feel good.
Anesth: I'll give her some more medicine.
When they moved around to eye #2, I asked aloud: "Should I be tearing a hole in this sheet?" I held it up for all to see how hard I'd gripped it into a wrinkled mess.
"No, you don't need to do that. Just relax."
"I CAN'T."
Anesth.: I'll give her some more medicine.
I so wanted them to stop, that I fought very hard against them clamping open eye #2. In my nearly hysterical, dazed state, I heard the Doc's stearn warning.
"Lana, you have to relax and let us get this on your eye. If we can't get it positioned properly, we'll have to trim your eyelashes. And no one wants trimmed eyelashes."
My retort remained silent as I focused all my energy on not fighting. But it would have been this, "Of course, and especially not when you already have stubby eyelashes."
I survived it all. I may have passed out from sheer exhaustion after they finished eye #2 . I didn't want to ever open my eyes. They'd squeezed some ointment (least favorite word) into my eyes to aid the healing. Kyle was waiting for me as I came out and asked if I could open my eyes. I tried, and said I could see his bushy hair. He'd gone at least 4 weeks without a hair cut. At least I kept my sense of humor!
I don't know how long I waited after coming out, but it didn't feel like long. They gave me some fancy-schmancy BluBlocker-type sunshields to wear, checked my eye pressure, and we left. I think it was around noon, and we'd arrived at 7am. I got very car sick on the way home, though, because my eyes had to be shut. Ugh. If only we didn't live so far away.
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