Saturday 28 February 2015

"Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends......."

          Now it might seem that having written about my experience of surgery on my right eye that there would be nothing of consequence to say about surgery on my left eye. Essentially this is true, but what was very different was the feel of the day.
          It began much as on the previous occasion some six weeks ago. The usual palaver of disinfectant showers and eye drops was gone through, including the tremendously satisfying breakfast of one glass of water. Then off we drove to 'la polyclinique', arriving a little before 10am. The building is a rather low, spread out rather than sprawling affair, sitting in the middle of the French countryside. As its name suggests, it consists of a number of theatres used for various aspects of surgery, and their supporting administrative networks. Anyway, the usual paperwork was quickly dealt with, and having found the correct waiting room without any trouble, we were ushered into a private preparation room. Strictly speaking this was not a private room at all, but one designed for three patients at a time. However, on this occasion, we had the room to ourselves, other patients being shunted into their own communal room.
          Once again I changed into theatre garb, was a little disconcerted by the apparent fragility of the knickers stitching, then helped up onto a waiting trolley as I prepared to meet my fate. Well one has




to have a little drama! Having been through the process once already, I had no concerns whatever about the imminent surgery. Yet as the orderly wheeled me away, I whispered to a smiling Lucy, "I feel nervous." (This experience of nerves, for which I had no conscious reason, was later confirmed when I discovered that my blood pressure was higher than it was when the whole business was finished.) As I travelled deep into the interior of the establishment, I noticed that everything was much lighter than before, as well as being far less crowded. Even the operating theatre itself was lit by natural light from a wall-length set of windows. It was this heightened sense of reality that was so different from before. But I am getting ahead of myself.
          I was determined to check my time-wise progress through the day's events and noted that I had left the preparation area at about 10.30am, the same time as on my previous visit. I arrived at the pre-op waiting area where I waited for five minutes before being wheeled into the theatre. Now this is where things began to go a little weird. The process of being swabbed, disinfected, and hooked up to the Borg Collective (see previous post) took about fifteen minutes. During this period, I and the theatre nurse indulged in a little faltering French and pidgin English discourse. Nothing too profound, you understand, just odd remarks about being, "nice and clean; nice and clean." "Oui!" said I. Well what else could I say? I couldn't actually see the results of her ministrations.
          When all was ready, the masked surgeon approached, peered down into my right eye (the one which had already been 'fixed'). I looked up at him in what I suppose might be called a rather alarmed fashion. In response, his eyes crinkled into a grin as he tapped the cheek under my left eye. I guess that is what passes for surgical humour! Get the patient worried, and it's a fun experience all round for the staff. I didn't find it laughingly funny at the time I can assure you, my sympathising readers. You are sympathising aren't you?
          Once again, the surgeon (he is actually a lovely guy) placed the blue cover over my face, as the machine automatically took my blood pressure - I think. Well one just cannot be certain of anything really. Okay, back to the blue cover. Was the correct window going to open? Was he going to forget and open the right-hand window? This and so many thoughts flooded through my brain. Then I heard a little scratching sound, and the shadow of two curved prongs above the covered left eye. "Steady on sunshine," I thought, "you can poke someone's eye out with those." Well, fortunately, that didn't happen, and the operation began in earnest.
          It seemed to take an inordinately long time to do the business, with copious amounts of cool liquid sloshed in at intervals. One had visions, not literally of course, of boiling humours of the vitreous and aqueous variety, caused by heated lasers being frantically calmed down. Finally came the welcome 'patching and strapping' that heralded the imminent departure from the theatre.
          "  'Alf an 'our you stay 'ere," said the post-op nurse, also solicitously enquiring whether I was in pain. That was a question repeated by other staff from time to time. What was wrong? Was something evident that I was not sharing in? Was I missing out somewhere? But then, sure enough, after 'alf an 'our, I was returned to my private changing room. So what had happened to the passage of time? Had I passed through a time warp? Adding up all my estimates of time passing (based largely on data collected from clocks which I could now see), there was time unaccounted for. Not only had I spent longer in the theatre than before, but also left the clinic an hour earlier than expected. But yet again I am getting ahead of myself.



I arrived back in my private room where, after some delay, my blood pressure was taken again, and I was allowed to get dressed. Somewhere on the way back from surgery I lost my theatre cap. No, you wouldn't have liked it. After another half an hour I was allowed some much needed refreshment. Lord, was I hungry?



          When all was nearly completed, along came another nurse to remove that pointed thing stuck in my wrist. Now I am sorry if the next bit of the proceedings doesn't elicit the mirth that followed the removal of metres of strapping the first time round, but as you can see this time the attaching tape had been applied with a delicacy not experienced heretofore. It was removed with only a sharply indrawn hiss of breath, and I was free. Free!



Update:          I saw the surgeon two days later, and he seemed satisfied with his work. Lucy, on my behalf, did point out that my right still seemed to be 'foggy' from time to time. In the surgeon's opinion, this was because I am English and it's always foggy in England. It just goes to show that you can't keep a good comic down.
          My left eye is recovering more quickly than had my right eye, probably because I am not taking anti-inflammatory eye drops to which I have an allergy. I have dug out an old pair of 'distance' glasses which allows me to read for reasonable periods. Unfortunately, that boon does not extend so readily to the laptop screen. But I have no complaints. All is going well, or was going well until I slipped on our wooden staircase and broke my fourth toe, earlier today. It looked 'orrible until we strapped it to its neighbour, and decently covered it up. So once again I have the chance to say,

"Oh the pain! Oh the agony! But without any loss of fur....only my dignity and mobility.

Oh yes! I forgot! I took the car out for a drive yesterday. That was great!

24 comments:

  1. Well, of course we sympathize! Delightful report and very glad to read you are doing fairly well. (Sorry about your toe, though!)

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    1. So pleased! Glad you enjoyed the report. It was a real joy to take the car out and go for a ride. It was great to be able to see all the way to the horizon without a trace of blurring.

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  2. All best wishes toward a speedy recovery. Must admit, you do look better in hospital garb than I did.

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    1. Thank you Geo. Maybe it was the recent New York fashion show that was an inspiration. I must admit I wasn't into power walking on a catwalk. More like a soft shoe shambling slouch.

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  3. Oh no, the toe! Anything restricting mobility gives me the shivers, as you can imagine, dear Tom. Please do take care on the stairs! I hope it doesn't give you much discomfort. Heal quickly!

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    1. Oh yes, the toe! Reliving the experience also can give the shivers. So long as I remain seated or lying down there are few problems. It's when I get up onto my feet that the trouble begins. We had an inspection of the toe this morning and the strapping Lucy applied has kept the toe quite straight. Am developing an interesting crab-like motion, with offending foot trailing behind, to get around when necessary.

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  4. Good strategy Tom. How else could you get Lucy's attention?
    I'm glad that all went well.
    The knicker photo is amazing - each finger of two hands is assigned a job.

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    1. Yes, that's me. Polyfingerous as ever!

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  5. Tom, I was holding my breath all through your saga - you did a great job of keeping up the suspense. Heureusement, a happy ending - apart from the broken toe - but better that than a broken eye, non? Bravo to the comic French surgeon and the efficient polyclinique and their très chic theatre fashion. Those black paper knickers must surely be the next must-have item in underwear. Thank you for this great report!

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    1. Thank you Natalie. I trust the ensemble showed its see-through qualities sufficiently. I had to ditch some photos; they were just a little too X-rated.

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  6. Well done, Tom. Excellent news on the eye op, I am just sorry about the broken toe. I had one of those years ago in the army and it was damned inconvenient - trying to declutch my old car using a walking stick. At least I deserved it - tripped over the NAAFI steps when slightly inebriated!

    Continue to improve.

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    1. I take my hat off to you. Whenever I left the NAAFI I was usually more than a little inebriated. If I'd had a car, I doubt whether I'd have had any idea where the clutch was, let alone find it. Now Malcolm Clubs in 2nd. TAF. They were the thing.

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  7. hurray for binocular vision!
    hurray for victorian knickers!
    hurray for tom!
    hurray for lucy (because they also serve who only stand [sit?] and wait)!

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    1. It would be most inappropriate of me to disagree. :)

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  8. Wow, we let patients leave their own pants on. Underpants, I mean, most cases. We prefer it, actually.

    During the very short time I did eyes (the lasers caused instant migraines) I once stopped the surgeon injecting the wrong eye. The correct eye was marked with a dot. He grunted, nodded at me, moved to the other side.

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    1. Lovely to see you here Zhoen. It does seem that this particular operation is fraught with possible disasters.

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  9. Hi Tom
    Another rather amazing entertaining post with so much detail, I can scarley imagine how your managed to recall it all so vividly. Despite the elevated blood pressure your mind rather obviously took it all in as if on auto pilot. I loved the quip from the surgeon about the London fog still in your eye.

    When I last had eye surgery, which was conducted under general anaesthesia, I asked the surgeon why I needed a general. He replied: “I don’t want you twitching and making it many difficult for me young man in order I can relax and enjoy my work in the best working conditions possible!” By By for now he waved smilingly as I drifted off.
    Sorry to hear about the big toe.
    Best wishes

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    1. Lucy says much the same thing when I recount dreams I have had. That kind of recall is a boon in path-working meditations. Glad you liked the surgeon's humour. As I said in the post, he's a lovely guy, and very popular with his patients and staff.

      If one isn't careful, there can be a tendency to get distracted by the colourful experience, and start following the images around. On this occasion I was even more careful about looking straight ahead.

      The middle toe break is a real pain. The particularly annoying thing is that it looks as if we may have to defer our trip to the UK at the end of the month for new reading specs. Enquiries are currently underway to determine what we ought to do next about the toe, and how long it is thought likely to heal.

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    2. Wow! You and Lucy planning a trip to the UK soon? Please may the toe heal quickly and perfectly so I may have the pleasure of a visit from both of you! Maybe the lovely eye-surgeon can do toes too?

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    3. Will arrange a rendez-vous a little closer to the time.

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  10. It's really good news that all went well with your second eye surgery and I'm delighted to know you're already well enough to drive. As far as the strange time elements are concerned I recall something similar when I underwent brain surgery. It's definitely an odd state of perception.

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    1. Yes. It just seems to defy any sense of logic or reason. But some good news has just arrived. Lucy has just returned with a new (by the look of them) set of crutches, on free hire from the local pharmacy. Not only that, but we've done all the right things with the strapping together of the toes. An x-ray would only confirm what we know already - the toe is broken! Further meddling would be counter productive. The last bit of good news is that the toe should heal in about three weeks, and that will fit in with our plans to go to the UK (see comment on Lindsay's).

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  11. You seem like quite a good patient (this time), Tom. And what makes those medicos think their sense of humor is a blessing. Oh well, they pay well for their education so I guess we can forgive them the occasional jape.

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