Surgical Fun

 A nurse came out to the waiting room and asked a few questions and talked to Olive and I. She wanted to confirm that I had a driver.

Back in the little pre surgical room she asked more questions.
Did I take two showers, sleep in clean sheets, no lotions, no pets in bed?...and so forth.

Then came all the wires and hook ups and a blood pressure reading which made their eyes pop. I heard one nurse look at my chart and say "white coat syndrome". Indeed, the quickest way to increase my blood pressure is to put me in a room and put the cuff on me. They dug a bit deeper into my chart which showed my normal readings to be well, very normal. 

The nurse put dilator goo that also was a local anesthetic in my eye. So, I was hyper and anxious and now couldn't see much through the Vaselined Eye.

In 20 minutes they checked the pressure again and I'd done some deep breathing and mental calming. My pressure was good.
The guy across the hall actually helped immensely. He was in for his second cataract/lens surgery.

The nurse asked him how he was getting along with the new lens, he said good but it was blurry once in a while. She replied, "Give it a couple of weeks so your brain can adjust to the new view."

He laughed such a wonderful laugh and replied to her, "Oh darlin', I am a Norwegian! We better give my brain a whole lot longer!"

The handsome eye doctor came in and fiddled with something and then discussed a 14 degree something and some techno wizard words. Then he initialed my left eyebrow. He told me to look straight at the hall way and then came in and touched my eye with something. I couldn't feel it.

He turned to the assistant and said something about that's the mark for the lens.
I asked him if he just put marks on my eyeball! 
"I did! See you soon!"

I got some really nasty tasting grape flavored goo to put under my tongue. [The day will be filled with goo references] It was Versed which is worse tasting than the grape flavored cough syrup kids of my generation had to have.
That med is supposed to sedate you. I didn't feel sedated. 

So when they came to get me I steeled myself for the surgery.

They put a mask like thing over my face and then pulled off an opening over my left eye. I was a bit surprised and then I felt more drops and a sudden pressure. Ahhh, they clamped the eye open! 

[And I didn't care! I was diggin' the pretty white light with all the green blobby stuff moving around, it was like a pretty kaleidoscope of green and white with dark shadows.]
Obviously, the Versed worked.

I heard the doctor's voice as he was saying what he was doing, it didn't make any sense to me. But at least he had a nice voice.

I don't remember them pulling the mask thing off my face, but I was wheeled down the corridor and that was it.

They wheeled me out to the entrance and off I went with Olive as my wheel woman. We did a KwiK Trip breakfast of croissants and coffee as we drove home.

All the rest of the day, I wore sunglasses in the house. Light bothered me, everything in the good eye was drippy with tears and fuzzy. It felt like I had an eyeful of hay chaff and I couldn't read. My weak eye went on strike and I went to bed with headphone and Chill Out Music from Pandora.

I was so frustrated. The big surprise of the day was that Rich asked if I needed some water to drink, could he make popcorn, could he get me some fresh Kleenex's for my drippy gooey eye? Could he feed Charlie for me?

I went to bed early and somewhere in the middle of the night, my eye stopped being drippy and weepy. It stopped itching and feeling gooey.

I woke up and stepped outside at 3AM to look up at the moon with no glasses on. I covered my weaker eye.

Can you imagine seeing the moon clearly for the first time in ages? Can you imagine seeing the moon with my own eyes for the first time ever without a halo around it?

I could have cried.

Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday. I couldn't see to read the comments until this morning.