Having spent
quite a lot of time since last Monday’s appointment bringing the family
up-to-date with developments by email, I thought I would do the same here on
the blog, so that we can move on to more varied topics before I bore you all
rigid.
On Monday
morning DH drove me to the Outpatients Department at our local cottage hospital and settled down with the work he’d brought with him to wait for me. Nearly
two hours later I emerged, half-blinded by the drops used to shrink the iris,
and with my mind buzzing with all the information I’d been given.
The very
thorough surgeon I saw was keen to disabuse me of the notion that, just because
it’s now done routinely, cataract surgery is not major surgery. It may not take
very long or necessitate in-patient treatment any more, but it’s still a complex
procedure and things can and do wrong sometimes, especially if there are any
other eye conditions, including the kind of severe short sight I have always
had. Complications such as retinal detachment are more common with severe short
sight, so he wanted to be sure I understood this before agreeing to surgery.
Secondly he said
that the way the cataract in my right eye had recently developed more rapidly
meant that, unless I had surgery, my sight in that eye would probably worsen
until I would be effectively blind in it, though obviously he could give me no
timescale for that.
When I said that
I was aware of the risks and did want to have the operation, he then sprang a
bombshell on me by asking me whether I wanted to go for gold and have my short
sight corrected at the same time! This would be done by not replacing the
defective lens with one of similar thickness, which would leave me with clear
vision, but still as short-sighted as ever.
Instead he would
insert a thin lens which would mean that light would be refracted to focus, if
not exactly on the retina (though that is the aim) then at least much closer to
it than it does at present. I would still need glasses, as an artificial lens
can’t change focus for closer work, but they would be far weaker and thinner
than the ones I’ve worn almost as long as I can remember.
The main problem
in having this done is that it would leave me temporarily with very uneven
vision, with one very weak eye (the left) and a much stronger, newly-corrected
one on the right, and this potentially rather (or even very) uncomfortable
situation would last for the three months which have to elapse between cataract
operations.
He could see
that all this was a lot to take in at once, especially as I'd only been
expecting to have one operation in the foreseeable future, so he told me I
don’t have to make a final decision until I see him at the pre-op assessment in
the big district general hospital where I will have surgery. This gives me time
to talk things over with DH and do some research on the subject, but already I
am well-nigh certain I will opt for the thin lens and somehow cope with the
three-month period between operations.
The other
problem of course is that being on a waiting list for not just one but two
operations means that all our plans for this year are going to be upset. The
surgeon said that the first operation will happen within three months, possibly
even sooner depending on cancellations. After this there will be a three month
wait until the first eye has completely healed and then the second operation.
So all our normal routine is up in the air at the moment and I’m still trying
to get my head around the idea that I may one day be able to go swimming and
recognise the people at the other side of the pool or put on make-up (on the very
rare occasions when I use it) without having to squint at close quarters.
So there you
have it – a Perpetua not in transit, but spinning on the spot, with a whole new
perspective on the world opening up in front of her.
