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The earlier post was about my doubts and fears flying through my mind just previous to going to the surgeon to get the patch removed for the first time. Soon, in an hour or so, I would be able to see whether the procedure worked for me or not.
My brother accused me of "nattering" on our way over to the hospital. I talked incessantly about every possibility I could think of both good and bad. For the most part he just let me talk, but not enough for me to feel patronized.
The patch itself was a real hassle. It was taped to my head in an uncomfortable way. Maybe I was just looking for something to suffer over. The pain of the plastic patch on my forehead got to the point where I took some ibuprofen to see if it would help. Eventually it did. I sat up practically all night trying to not do anything that would tear out the stitch.
Yeah, that's right, "the" stitch. Not seven stitches like I was informed by the nurse who checked me out of the surgery unit. When I got a chance that's the first thing I asked the surgeon, "Why seven stitches?" He was bumfuzzled. He didn't know what I was talking about. There was only one stitch. Who told me there were seven stitches? I snitched on the bitch that fooled me about the seven stitches.
He took the patch off and all my doubts and fears slowly went away. He had me read a chart, and he rotated it to smaller and smaller print. It was like I couldn't believe I could actually read the letters. He had to encourage me to think I could do it. When I messed up he would tell me to blink my eyelids a few times to see if that helped. It did. I think I literally had to be convinced that I could see, and then I could.
Being able to see with my right eye happened just as soon as he took the patch off. Some objects were a little blurry at first. My first impression was that anything white was really, really white. Presently, my peripheral vision previews what's coming into focus, and it sees white with some blue it. Like laundry bluing. Then, when the object moves into my foveal focus it turns brilliantly white, but I still see the blue out of the corner of my eye.
The next most impressive thing happens when I close my right eye and view the same object through the cataract in my left eye. As I wrote earlier, even yesterday afternoon, it became clear that I couldn't see as well as I had thought with my left eye with the patch still on. My left eye was my "good eye". At least that's what I had thought before the operation.
The world through my left eye is a brown world. A hazy brown world. Now I can see it and compare with what my right eye sees instantly. I'm practically blind in my "good eye". When the surgeon tested my eyes this morning, and encouraged me to try harder to see than I thought possible, I could. He pushed. I responded well. Not when he asked me to see the chart with my left eye. His encouragement failed, but I got the feeling that he expected the exact results he got. I guess he felt obligated to go through the motions.
The lens that was put in has a registration number. It's made by AcrySof. I looked it up on the internet, but couldn't make sense of the numbers. I did figure out one thing. They didn't put the lens in the sac, because the surgeon told me they had accidentally ripped it, so they put the lens behind the sac.
I somehow knew they'd screwed up and implied it with my remarks about the "seven sutures/stitches". He asked me how much had I heard of what he and the other doctor had been saying during the operation. I shined it on. Too late to play the blame game. The internet site said the lens was designed to go either way as long as the distance was calculated and allowed for. I assume that's what he was awkwardly explaining, that they had made the calculations.
With all the additional light coming in it's gotta be better. He said that if there was any problem with the rip in the sac they could fix it later with a laser. I had already read all about this several years ago. I guess that's why I received his confession with aplomb. If my eyesight is better, and it is, and if it's too late after the procedure is done, why rock the boat. This is pretty early in the game to decide my fate anyway. A few nights of sleep might really help my outlook.
I got spots in my right eye. Maybe that's why they gave me all those drops to put in my eye for a week. Two kinds four times a day. One kind three times a day. It might be hard to work a regular job and keep my medicine dosing on schedule. I haven't taken any of my RA medicine for a week on the advice of one of the surgeons. I guess I'll have to figure that in with the eye drops too. The eye drops only last for five days.
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