The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl- Volume 19
This week the focus of my blog is on my cataract surgery and the things I found strange and funny about the experience. Consider it a primer if you ever have to have a cataract removed.
Both my parents drove me to the surgery center and when we were sitting in the waiting room the person at the counter motioned for me to come up and fill out some paperwork for my mother because she assumed that she was the one having the surgery. So I looked at my mom and said “I guess you look older than Dad”, which I am sure she appreciated. When I am called back I race to the door fast before my parents ask if they can come with. Once in the pre-op room the nurse takes my health and medical history, and because I am younger than your average cataract surgery patient (e.g., the man in the area next to me had been married for 61 years), she kept apologizing for the questions. Some examples, “do you have partials or dentures”, “have you had hip or knee replacement” and “do you have a pacemaker”. Then she takes my vitals and begins to look for a being for the IV. This prompts my, what I call, detailed description of my problem veins. So the story is that I have tiny veins that both roll and blow. One time I had to be stuck 6 times to get an IV started. My average stick is 3 times. I share my extensive knowledge of how to successfully work with my substandard vascular system. Which can be summed up as left arm is better, veins will roll, use the smallest needed you have and after two unsuccessful sticks, call the vampire. She got the vein in one stick and gave me credit because the vein rolled and she was prepared for it. I also related to her that I was fully cognizant during my last eye surgery and was asking lots of questions during the procedure, so if they wanted me to be quiet they need to ramp up the sedatives much like if they were drugging a large animal.
As I chillaxed in the pre-op area listening to the conversations of the nurses I was asked if I wanted my parents to come back and sit with me. I communicated that in order to remain relaxed I needed them to remain in the waiting room and to tell them, if they asked any questions, that no family members were allowed in the pre-or post-op area, because that is what I had told them. An interesting thing is that is in pre-op they do lots of things to avoid potential lawsuits. I was asked about 15 times what eye was being operated on and they actually took a marker and wrote above the eye. At that time I had no clue what it was, but I did inquire about the permenancy of the marker. When the nurse anesthetist came in and I was again telling her to up the drugs another nurse realized I was under 55 and started to ask me more questions like was there a possibility I was pregnant and if I had a hysterectomy or tubal ligation. “No to all the above” I said. But self-report of no sex plus an IUD was not good enough to keep me from having a pregnancy test. So, at the last moment, I was told to get them about 15 drops. As I sat there counting the drops I was hoping that there could have been some reason I could possibly be pregnant. When the nurse announced that the test was negative she said, “No miracle pregnancies today”.
Then Dr. Huff, my cataract doc, saunters in asking where my parents are because he wanted to talk to them before the procedure and he seemed somewhat baffled they were not there. I communicated that they were in the waiting room and fed him the party line about pre-op prohibitions. I have to spend a minute on Dr. Huff because he is so darn cute and tall and has a great voice. Even my parents are impressed with his good looks. I may be visually impaired but I can spot a handsome man, make that a handsome married man. From him I learned that I was number 8 of the 9 surgeries he was performing before lunch and that while he was checking in on me patient 7 was on the table waiting for him. I told him he better not be worn out and he said “no, now I am just really awake”. Good thing for me. I also warned him about my inability to stay quiet during a procedure and asked him what music he would be playing because I did not think I could get through another 80‘s hair band experience. No worries, he would be playing Steve FM, which plays a wide variety of songs, both in genre and decade.
Back in the surgery room they prep me by placing some oxygen in my nose. This is so I do not suffocate when they place the draping over my whole head and face, cutting a small hole over the left eye. Of course lots of drops start going in; saline, numbing and mercurochrome, which is that same yellow stuff they paint on you when you’re getting cut open. Note that the only thing that numbs you during eye surgery are topical drops, nothing through the IV, which is a little freaky. Then I am told to look into the light and the procedure begins. And guess what, I am not at all sedated, so when the nurses start playing name that tune or artist with Steve FM I cannot help but get into the match. I mean this is my forte. So, when the nurses cannot decide if a song is actually REO Speedwagon, I blurt out from under the plastic it is REO Speedwagon. And when they have no clue who is singing a song I blurt out again it is Dido and I have to say it twice because they do not hear me. And for that brief moment I lose concentration and forget to look into the light and Dr. Huff is not at all pleased because he is doing microsurgery and my eye starts moving around-so he tells me to stop it and keep looking at the light. A familiar voice was also present during the surgery, the machine with the woman’s voice that kept saying cutting, “cutting, during” my last surgery. This time she did not say as much, but the machine emitted a strange cacophony of sounds that eerily sounded like the Theremin music you hear in old horror movies. I think they need to make a CD of eye surgery machine music. I really should have asked what that piece of equipment was called. But I was afraid to say anything else during the procedure and I was concentrating on not singing when a Kool and the Gang song came on. I even managed to keep my mouth shut when he asked the nurse to go get him a CTR to put in my eye.
As they were wheeling me out I immediately said “what is a CTR”, which they explained was a capillary tension ring to hold the lens in place. Then the nurse commented that I did not seem at all sedated. Back in post op I was offered a beverage and crackers so I indulged in a Coke and graham crackers. I was really enjoying the moment when the nurse came in and said she had to bring my parents back so she could explain the discharge and eye drop instructions. So I say that I will be doing the drops (I am a professional eye drop administrator), so she could just tell those things to me. But no, she said they HAD to come back because I had been sedated and they had to have someone else sign the papers with the instructions (another avoiding a lawsuit procedure), so they came back and heard about the drops and within 5 minutes I was out of there, just in a little pain and with a clear shield over my eye, and as I later learned, a big letter H above my left eye. I also left with two implant cards, one for the lens and another for the CTR. So I ask what they are for and do I have to carry then with me when I traveled, because I assumed this was a TSA thing. I say, will they help me to avoid the full body scan, to which my dad says many women (and he is including me in this) may enjoy it because it is the most action they have gotten in a while. HAHA. But now I am thinking about implants in general and if other people who have other types of implants have to carry this card to tell the world; parts of me are fake and I have the card to prove it.
So, cataract surgery is a breeze and there is not a lot of pain and discomfort afterward. If your lens becomes opaque, by all means have it taken out and replaced with a nice shiny new one. But here is what is interesting, I am, not really seeing much better, just seeing again the damage to my retina and, I am just now realizing, my cornea. There is more light coming in, but in that light I can see how strange my left eye sees. There is a strange refraction to the light and the image is somewhat distorted like I am seeing something reflected in a sphere. When I had the accident my cornea was basically squashed from its round shape into a bullet and even though it bounced back and reshaped itself, it is still not the right shape. My hope is that my brain begins to adjust. I am assuming it will.
Coming next week, the blog on my custody battle. Now that it is over I am going public with the details and my take on the family court system. Juicy!
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
This week the focus of my blog is on my cataract surgery and the things I found strange and funny about the experience. Consider it a primer if you ever have to have a cataract removed.
Both my parents drove me to the surgery center and when we were sitting in the waiting room the person at the counter motioned for me to come up and fill out some paperwork for my mother because she assumed that she was the one having the surgery. So I looked at my mom and said “I guess you look older than Dad”, which I am sure she appreciated. When I am called back I race to the door fast before my parents ask if they can come with. Once in the pre-op room the nurse takes my health and medical history, and because I am younger than your average cataract surgery patient (e.g., the man in the area next to me had been married for 61 years), she kept apologizing for the questions. Some examples, “do you have partials or dentures”, “have you had hip or knee replacement” and “do you have a pacemaker”. Then she takes my vitals and begins to look for a being for the IV. This prompts my, what I call, detailed description of my problem veins. So the story is that I have tiny veins that both roll and blow. One time I had to be stuck 6 times to get an IV started. My average stick is 3 times. I share my extensive knowledge of how to successfully work with my substandard vascular system. Which can be summed up as left arm is better, veins will roll, use the smallest needed you have and after two unsuccessful sticks, call the vampire. She got the vein in one stick and gave me credit because the vein rolled and she was prepared for it. I also related to her that I was fully cognizant during my last eye surgery and was asking lots of questions during the procedure, so if they wanted me to be quiet they need to ramp up the sedatives much like if they were drugging a large animal.
As I chillaxed in the pre-op area listening to the conversations of the nurses I was asked if I wanted my parents to come back and sit with me. I communicated that in order to remain relaxed I needed them to remain in the waiting room and to tell them, if they asked any questions, that no family members were allowed in the pre-or post-op area, because that is what I had told them. An interesting thing is that is in pre-op they do lots of things to avoid potential lawsuits. I was asked about 15 times what eye was being operated on and they actually took a marker and wrote above the eye. At that time I had no clue what it was, but I did inquire about the permenancy of the marker. When the nurse anesthetist came in and I was again telling her to up the drugs another nurse realized I was under 55 and started to ask me more questions like was there a possibility I was pregnant and if I had a hysterectomy or tubal ligation. “No to all the above” I said. But self-report of no sex plus an IUD was not good enough to keep me from having a pregnancy test. So, at the last moment, I was told to get them about 15 drops. As I sat there counting the drops I was hoping that there could have been some reason I could possibly be pregnant. When the nurse announced that the test was negative she said, “No miracle pregnancies today”.
Then Dr. Huff, my cataract doc, saunters in asking where my parents are because he wanted to talk to them before the procedure and he seemed somewhat baffled they were not there. I communicated that they were in the waiting room and fed him the party line about pre-op prohibitions. I have to spend a minute on Dr. Huff because he is so darn cute and tall and has a great voice. Even my parents are impressed with his good looks. I may be visually impaired but I can spot a handsome man, make that a handsome married man. From him I learned that I was number 8 of the 9 surgeries he was performing before lunch and that while he was checking in on me patient 7 was on the table waiting for him. I told him he better not be worn out and he said “no, now I am just really awake”. Good thing for me. I also warned him about my inability to stay quiet during a procedure and asked him what music he would be playing because I did not think I could get through another 80‘s hair band experience. No worries, he would be playing Steve FM, which plays a wide variety of songs, both in genre and decade.
Back in the surgery room they prep me by placing some oxygen in my nose. This is so I do not suffocate when they place the draping over my whole head and face, cutting a small hole over the left eye. Of course lots of drops start going in; saline, numbing and mercurochrome, which is that same yellow stuff they paint on you when you’re getting cut open. Note that the only thing that numbs you during eye surgery are topical drops, nothing through the IV, which is a little freaky. Then I am told to look into the light and the procedure begins. And guess what, I am not at all sedated, so when the nurses start playing name that tune or artist with Steve FM I cannot help but get into the match. I mean this is my forte. So, when the nurses cannot decide if a song is actually REO Speedwagon, I blurt out from under the plastic it is REO Speedwagon. And when they have no clue who is singing a song I blurt out again it is Dido and I have to say it twice because they do not hear me. And for that brief moment I lose concentration and forget to look into the light and Dr. Huff is not at all pleased because he is doing microsurgery and my eye starts moving around-so he tells me to stop it and keep looking at the light. A familiar voice was also present during the surgery, the machine with the woman’s voice that kept saying cutting, “cutting, during” my last surgery. This time she did not say as much, but the machine emitted a strange cacophony of sounds that eerily sounded like the Theremin music you hear in old horror movies. I think they need to make a CD of eye surgery machine music. I really should have asked what that piece of equipment was called. But I was afraid to say anything else during the procedure and I was concentrating on not singing when a Kool and the Gang song came on. I even managed to keep my mouth shut when he asked the nurse to go get him a CTR to put in my eye.
As they were wheeling me out I immediately said “what is a CTR”, which they explained was a capillary tension ring to hold the lens in place. Then the nurse commented that I did not seem at all sedated. Back in post op I was offered a beverage and crackers so I indulged in a Coke and graham crackers. I was really enjoying the moment when the nurse came in and said she had to bring my parents back so she could explain the discharge and eye drop instructions. So I say that I will be doing the drops (I am a professional eye drop administrator), so she could just tell those things to me. But no, she said they HAD to come back because I had been sedated and they had to have someone else sign the papers with the instructions (another avoiding a lawsuit procedure), so they came back and heard about the drops and within 5 minutes I was out of there, just in a little pain and with a clear shield over my eye, and as I later learned, a big letter H above my left eye. I also left with two implant cards, one for the lens and another for the CTR. So I ask what they are for and do I have to carry then with me when I traveled, because I assumed this was a TSA thing. I say, will they help me to avoid the full body scan, to which my dad says many women (and he is including me in this) may enjoy it because it is the most action they have gotten in a while. HAHA. But now I am thinking about implants in general and if other people who have other types of implants have to carry this card to tell the world; parts of me are fake and I have the card to prove it.
So, cataract surgery is a breeze and there is not a lot of pain and discomfort afterward. If your lens becomes opaque, by all means have it taken out and replaced with a nice shiny new one. But here is what is interesting, I am, not really seeing much better, just seeing again the damage to my retina and, I am just now realizing, my cornea. There is more light coming in, but in that light I can see how strange my left eye sees. There is a strange refraction to the light and the image is somewhat distorted like I am seeing something reflected in a sphere. When I had the accident my cornea was basically squashed from its round shape into a bullet and even though it bounced back and reshaped itself, it is still not the right shape. My hope is that my brain begins to adjust. I am assuming it will.
Coming next week, the blog on my custody battle. Now that it is over I am going public with the details and my take on the family court system. Juicy!
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
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