The operation

Within about five minutes of entering the operating room, my gurney was adjusted to the surgeons' specifications, and everyone was ready to proceed. Someone wiped what I assumed to be a sterilizing liquid over the area of my eye several times, and from this point on, I couldn't see anything because a sterilized cloth was laid over my face, exposing nothing more than my bad eye. So the only thing I was able to see was a blindingly bright light in my bad eye, so anything I talk about in the operating room from now on are things that were heard and not seen.

Within the first few minutes, it appeared that the female doctor was being coached by the older male doctor. Not basic coaching like she had never seen a human eye before, but very technical coaching that often sounded more like suggestions as the operation proceeded. Now at first, this gave me a moment of pause that a trainee was using razor-sharp instruments in my eyeball, and for a few seconds apprehension filled my mind, and I thought about telling the anesthesiologist to give me a squirt or two of Jack Daniels into that long needle in my hand, which, up to this point, wasn't doing anything useful.

But not wanting to sound like a sissy, and always looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty I decided to make the best of this by thinking how lucky I am to have two doctors working on my eye, so if one makes a mistake the other can quickly correct it, so this two doctor thing is not a problem, it's a blessing.

I recall hearing the two doctors discuss the benefits of a thin cutting instrument versus a thick one, and I remember the buzz of the sonic instrument that was breaking up my bad lens so the pieces could be removed. And after that, I was asked to look up and down to ensure all the pieces were vacuumed out. And I remember how happy I was when I heard the doctor call for the surgical nurse to open the container that held my new lens, knowing that the worst was over.

The doctor told me that from the time I lay down on the table to the time they rolled me out the door was 22 minutes. They took me into the recovery room, but since I had no anesthesia administered, there was no recovery needed, so I started getting dressed immediately. In a few minutes, my daughter was back in the recovery room with me, and I was being wheel-chaired out to my daughter's car.

I know I wrote this blog post in reverse order, but I didn't want anyone to be concerned about my operation, so I started with the good news of the operation's success.

I thought this would be the end of my cataract blog posts, but lacking anything else to write about, I figured I would write another blog post tomorrow about how I'm dealing with my post-operation.

Theboondork

An early morning walk at Pete’s.

But not as early as you might think. Since the sun rises over the mountains, it’s usually around 8 o’clock before it actually appears.