Surgery sucks. The only good thing, I suppose is that I have slept more than I can remember in the last 24 hours. So here was the ordeal. I arrived at the outpatient surgery center at 7:15 am. They took me back to a room where my eye doctor came back and wrote his initials in permanent marker over my right eye. Later my dad told me he was very relieved that he did that because when the two of them were chatting about the surgery last month (they are friends), the eye doctor kept talking about my left eye. Then a nurse directed me to take ALL my clothes off and put on their silly hospital gown. Yes, I did ask why I had to take all my clothes off for surgery on my eye and I was not overly relieved when I found out it was so they would have good access to my body if anything went wrong during the time I was under.
After some time, an anesthesiologist came in to start my IV. OUCH! My dad tried to make me feel better once again by letting me know that they use BIG IVs during surgery because if they need good access they want to have it. No, that didn't make me nervous. Then they pumped my arm full of cold water, which they said wasn't really cold, just room temperature. . . but it felt cold to me. My dad, sharing stories about all his IVs made some mention of the feeling of Demerol through an IV, to which the anesthesiologist responded, "We start to worry about people when they ask for the Demerol," When he left the room, I asked my dad to please say something doctor like so the guy did not think he was a drug addict. He just laughed at me.
Well after some time, where my stomach started to get all tingly with nerves, a resident came in with a med student. She asked me to look in all sorts of different directions, while the med student stood behind her and looked interested in whatever it is that my eyes do. Actually, the med student just looked nervous and confused which didn't make me feel that much better except that I knew that Dr. G was going to actually do my surgery.
Finally the nurse came in to walk me back to the operating room. As we got settled in the room, she said something about recognizing my dad. I climbed up on the bed, and the anesthesiologist asked if she knew him because he had had a lot of surgeries. I saw my moment and let him know that he was a doctor in the building. After a slight pause and a half laugh, the anesthesiologist said, "I guess I shouldn't have made that comment about the Demerol." We all laughed.
The female nurse told me to start thinking of a happy dream, while she lowered the oxygen mask over my face. Then the male nurse with the advertisement on his cap started telling everybody about the dream he had last night. The last thing I remember was the nice female nurse whispering in my ear, "Honey, you think of your own dream."
The next thing I knew, they were telling me it was all over and it was time to wake up. I tried to open my eyes, but the pain was excruciating. Then I started having dry heaves and/or vomiting. Somebody told me that was very common with eye muscle surgery, which didn't make my stomach, my throat, or my head feel any better. For the next while, I kept fading in and out, between moments of heaves. Every time I tried to open my eyes, they were blurry and I got sick again. It was very disconcerting, and I was a lot frightened that something had gone wrong.
The next couple of hours is a blur, but at some point, they moved me to level 2, where my mom and dad came in. They thought I was sleeping, but really I just still couldn't open my eyes. Dr. G came in at some point. When he asked how I was doing, I told him I couldn't open my eyes. "Sure you can," he said and pried them open. Apparently my communication skills were not at full function at that moment, because what I should have said was that I could open my eyes, but the pain was too excruciating. So there I sat, feeling as though somebody was running a metal file across the underside of my right eye, and Dr. G wanted to know if I was seeing double. I felt more like I was seeing triple, and every time my right eye moved it felt as though I was being stabbed with a rusty fork. I suppose he left, and other people came and went and time passed as I fell in and out of sleep.
At one point, they decided that I should get up, move to a chair, and then go home, seeing as it is SAME day surgery. So that sat me up and I started having the dry heaves all over again. Let me tell you, there is nothing worse than the dry heaves. I hate them. And to have the dry heaves and a moment when every time I moved my head it felt like needles where being shoved into my eyes just makes it worse. So, my eyes started to water, like they do when you heave like that. Only after eye surgery, water isn't the liquid that comes out. That's right, I sat there in the hospital bed, dry heaving, with tears of blood dripping down my cheeks. If only my mom had brought the video camera. After moments of this, I decided it would be better if I lay back down, with no firm commitments to get up in the near future.
I slept a while longer and then decided I wanted the IV out and wanted to go home. Somehow I thought I might feel better if I could get out of the hospital. So, up I sat again and this time it was a lot better. They moved me to a chair, my mom helped me get dressed, and after donning a pair of sunglasses they wheeled me out. I have to tell you, that I didn't open my eyes during this whole thing, and it was very bothersome to not see while doing this. I still had this fear that something was very wrong. On the way out, Dr. G, popped out from nowhere and held a purple pen in front of my face. He made me open my eyes again, and pointed out that the tilt in my head was gone. Yes, I thought, but it has been replaced by excruciating pain every time I open my eyes or move my head in any direction. But I thanked him anyway.
I kept my eyes closed during the drive home and then promptly went back to sleep when I got home. I slept off and on throughout the day, while my mom -- chief nurse extraordinaire -- took care of Molly and Maggie and popped in regularly to remind me to drink lots of fluid. The only time she and I had a disagreement was when she insisted that we pry my right eye open to insert the necessary drops. I have to ask who devised such torture as putting drops in an eye they same day it has been slit open, pulled apart, and the muscles have been cut.
As the day went on, my eye started to feel a lot better, which simply meant that the pain was now downgraded to unbearably miserable. For example, it began to feel like the inside of my eye was only coated with sandpaper. When I moved my head, there was not as much double vision, but if I moved my eyes, everything was all out of whack.
My dad came home in the evening and we sat in a dark room. I reminded him that the physicians assistant from the previous day had said some people would be up and normal by the afternoon. He reminded me that when they send people home, they don't really know. He felt that everything that was happening was normal. He explained that the pain in the eye was because of the stitches and the swelling, not from the cutting of the muscles and that it should get slowly better over the next few days. I found that very reassuring.
So, I went back to sleep and slept through the night. This morning and afternoon, I am much more able to open my right eye. My head does seem to be a lot more straight then it used to and I can see without double vision when I move my head to the right. However, if I move my eyes without my head, I still feel very disoriented and everything goes haywire. Also, when I move my head to the left (used to be my good side) I have slight double vision. I don't know if this means there has been an overcorrection, or if it is just a temporary thing. It still hurts inside my eye quite a bit and things are blurry and I see halos because of all the gook and blood in there.
I don't really feel like I can do much because I get a headache when I move around and I can't read either, but I can't sleep anymore either, which leaves me with that awful cabin fever feeling. It makes me feel kind of down in the dumps. I'm trying to remember that it is going to get better by leaps and bounds in the next few days and weeks and that I just need to be patient, which is unfortunately not one of my best virtues.
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