Teeny Tiny Surgery

Can you see me now?

Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

In December, I discovered that my “beginning” cataracts, which had been minor for a long time, had grown considerably in the last three years—since my last eye exam. The whole Covid shutdown had thrown me off the frequency of my eye exams, plus my old optometrist had retired right before Covid.

I knew my eyes had gotten worse and I needed new glasses, but it hadn’t occurred to me that a large part of the problem was the cataracts, particularly the one in my left eye.

I mistakenly thought that I needed to get a referral from my primary care doctor to see an ophthalmologist, and I procrastinated about writing to her about it. When I found out that I could reach out on my own, I made the appointment and saw the new doctor, Doctor T (he has a long Greek name) a couple of days ago.

Both of my parents had both eyes done, and so I was not surprised by this perk of the aging process. My dad had paid out-of-pocket for the “fancy” lenses, and after his surgeries, he didn’t need glasses anymore. I never really got accustomed to that; like me, he had been wearing glasses since he was four or five.

Pre-cataracts, I have had progressive lenses, and have a severe astigmatism. Prior to my meeting with Doctor T, I was concerned that there wouldn’t be any “fancy” lenses option for me because of the astigmatism. Turns out, one of the options does work, and worst case scenario, will greatly reduce the severity of the astigmatism so that it will be much easier for me to get glasses if I still need them.

Photo by Ion Fet on Unsplash

So me Doc T are rollin’, and he seems pleased that I seem pretty sanguine about the whole thing. And then it dawns on me. “Is an IV required for the surgery?”

“Well, it isn’t required, but it does make the patient more comfortable.”

“I am hard stick,” I say.

I wrote about my hard stickiness here: I’m a Hard Stick.

My first thought was that I would just skip the IV—since it isn’t for pain control. But I was worried about the holding still during the surgery part. Ultimately, Doc T and I agreed that we would try the IV for the first surgery and see how it goes.

He said, “We kind of tape your head down,” and I said, “No tape!” “When you remove the tape, the top couple of layers of the skin on my forehead will come off.”

This oughta be fun. Can't wait to see better though.