Thursday, October 24, 2013

Laughing in the Twilight

Today was the big day! When they take the patch off tomorrow, I should have perfect 20/20 vision in my left eye -- for the first time in 40+ years. Wow.

There were some things that struck me funny today. First, one of the nurses and I started talking biking. She has a Trek and bikes out of Waldorf, but loves Old Town Alexandria, where my adventure yesterday occurred. We got so "into" talking biking that the other nurse had to interrupt us to get the show on the road. Turns out Dr. W was moving along on his earlier case pretty quickly!

Next, they did my BP and ran an EKG and said my heart was in great shape. And here I thought lawyers didn't have hearts.

Next, the the anesthesia guy was hilarious. We talked about everything and he said it was awful when his patients were healthier than him. His last question was what I do for a living. I told him he didn't want to know. He didn't miss a beat -- trial lawyer.  Well, not for a living, but yeah, that's my training. He was wonderful. Seriously.

The whole time he and I were talking, the guy putting the IV in was working on my left hand. Badda-bing- it was done, and he was GOOD.  Like, no pain or discomfort!  They gave me what they call twilight sedation. I needed to be able to respond when the doc asked me to move my eye a certain direction.

Finally, to get this you have to understand Dr. W.  He's a really nice guy, but not much sense of humor that shows. I saw a glimpse the other day in his office, so I decided to go with it this morning. When they do eye surgery they put this drape over your head with a tiny window that exposes only your eye.  I started laughing (and no, it wasn't the drugs) and said, "I'm in a burka!" I heard a few smirkish laughs.  Then they had some great music on, so every time they asked, 'are you doing okay?" I asked, "is it time to sing yet?"

So, I'm home, no pain, although it's uncomfortable with this huge protective patch. Dr. W told me I was going to hate him when he takes the tape off tomorrow. I ALMOST said, "too late" because he'd strapped my head down and had pulled THAT tape off already, but decided to forego any more sarcasm.  After all, he has access to the scalpels, right?

I'm wondering tomorrow, when they take this off, what it will be like to see clearly. I mean, I haven't seen clearly for quite a while yet. I'd been asking my other doc about this for close to 5 years!

I was hoping, under my burka, that when he finished, before he put the bandage on, that I would get a glimpse of the world in focus, but he's too quick.

And my last point, inside my drape, I realized, I have no idea what it's like to choose that, and live it every day. That means I need to go back to the drawing board with my book I'm writing.  Hmmmm.

Sounds like I need another sip of wine.

1 comment:

The Bug said...

Yay! I remember that drape. I didn't have an IV for my surgery, but I did have some lovely drugs. And no patch either - but my vision was still blurry right after the surgery. It wasn't until several hours later - after a nap - that I woke up & saw clearly. And that was a sweet sweet moment :)

Perhaps you should see if there's a way for you to wear a burka yourself for a day. I felt like what you wrote before WAS pretty on point - but I've never worn one either. Boy I can see where it would be a safe choice to make out there in the big bad world. Sometimes I wish I wore one!