Second Verse, Same as the First

After dithering around for several years, I finally had the cataract removed from my right eye today.

They always tell you not to eat or drink before the surgery, but I did take a small dose of my anti-convulsant. I have restless leg syndrome, and when I had the left eye done the anesthesiologist had a hard time keeping me still. You don’t want to be dancing all over the operating table during any surgery, but especially not when they are working on your eyes, so this time I took a half a pill before I left the house..

From what I gather, it was a jolly good thing, because they told The Squire they had to give me extra “juice” anyway. When the doctor came in to give me a pre-op pep talk, I was so sleepy I didn’t respond. I do remember him opening my “good” eye and saying “peek=a=boo”, but not much else. A faint recollection of something round above my eye, and I complained later about the rock band they had in the OR; that turned out to be some sort of machine, which they agreed was very loud. My nurse had a hard time getting a decent blood oxygen reading; I have Renaud’s syndrome, and when I get cold the blood doesn’t flow into the tips of my fingers, or my toes, for that matter. The first time she fired on one of my index fingers she said it looked as if I was dead – and cooling rapidly. She had to try all ten finger before she finally managed to get a decent reading from my right thumb. I suggested a cup of hot coffee might be useful. She agreed but they don’t give patients that because of the danger of people spilling it all over themselves. Makes sense – it’s hard to drink when you are semi-reclining, and you simply cannot drive coffee with a straw!

The Squire collected me after the surgery, brought me home and fed me and then helped me up to bed, where I slept for several hours. After supper and eyedrops, I tried to work on a jigsaw puzzle while he went to the market, but between my vison and the cat deciding I needed help, that didn’t pan out too well.