I acquired some bragging rights this week.
I've had cataract surgery on both my eyes.
For the second eye it was done without an anesthetic!
The first thing they do is give you a series of eye drops...four or five, I don't know. They also give you a funny hat that covers all your hair. You also get a gown to go over your clothing.
Then they take you to the room where they prepare you for surgery. This consists of more drops. The eye has been numbed before they put in the freezing. They put something on your eye and you're told to look up, down and to both sides. You also get an oxygen tube attached. You get an IV attached and you're ready to go except that you wait for a long time.
Yesterday , I was wheeled into the operating room. They got organized with their equipment. Then they told me to look at a blinding light and they were ready to go. I couldn't see anything except for this bright ugly orange light. For the first eye they used an anesthetic. It was nice. No fuss . NO mess. Yesterday they started work on me. I was waiting to conk out. I soon realized that the conking out wasn't going to happen. So I had my cataract surgery with out anesthetic.
You've heard of blinding light. They ask you to look at a bright light and then you can't see anything. They start to work on you. Your head is rolled around. You feel pushing and pulling on the eyeball. Then you hear the laser and you know that they are making a slit in your eye. You can feel them take out the original lens. You can feel them slide in the new lens. A liberal amount of water is used in the process so there must be some mess that they wash away.
So I'm proud of my self for having the surgery without anesthetic even if I didn't know it was going to happen. They didn't tell me the surgery would be done without anesthetic. They didn't ask me. They just went ahead and did the surgery without anesthetic.
So there you are. All you need to know about cataract surgery. The surgery went very well and my vision is much improved. Now I just have to take three kinds if drops , four times a day for six weeks.
