March 27th, 2018

Hope everyone had a perfectly lovely weekend and a darned good Monday.  A good solid Monday kind of sets the tone for the rest of the week.  I know you are sick and tired of hearing about this so this will probably be the last post talking about my eyes.  My last eye surgery, the left eye, was yesterday which is why I didn't post.  So finally, the vision in my eyes match! Woohoo!

​Since this was the second time around, I kind of knew the drill.  We drove through the darkness and the fog to Sarasota, about a half hour away, for the procedure and showed up a little ahead of our very early check-in time of 6:45.  Oddly, both surgeries were very foggy mornings which is especially funny to me now because after the surgeries, I was the foggy one. It oddly made perfect sense.

​I cannot say enough positive things about the surgery center. Everyone was very nice, professional but kind, and they have this process down cold.  There was a lot of waiting of course dotted with a lot of different tests, each in a different room by a different person. In fact, the only thing there was more of than tests and people were eye drops.   One of the staff jokingly told me that they were water-boarding my eye. That is exactly what it felt like.  But it also says to me that they get it. They understand how it feels to be a patient going through this process.  The center was beautifully appointed and very clean. I even like that they suggested ahead of time that I dress warmly.  Done and thank you ;)

​Once I was in the prep room, sitting on my nicely padded gurnery and wearing the oh so fashionable green haircap, one person  slipped my right arm into a blood pressure cuff while another was going over things with me and asking all the questions they always have to ask (when was the last time you ate? drank?) I was nibbling on the fingernail of the other hand.  One of the staff asked if I was nervous.  I stopped nibbling and said, "well not nervous really, just remembering the surgery last time. I guess you could say, I'm looking forward to it being over".  She paused and said, "You remember it?"  I said, "oh yes", and shared some of the things I remembered from the week before.  "Hmmmm", she said, "People usually have no memory of it at all.  We will up your sedation".  She smiled and left.  

​That's pretty much the last thing I remember from yesterday. But I still vividly remember the previous week.  The nice warm blanket that they covered me with, the covering over my face that felt like bubble wrap, the lighted pink marshmallow looking thing that I had no choice but to stare at since my eye was held open by some sort of eye clamp and even the doctor moving my head into postion (repeatedly - I guess I kept moving without realizing it).  Vivid memories.  No pain at all, but I do remember it. Every bit of it. The first time.  The second time? I got nothin' and I think I like it that way.

​I spent the rest of yesterday in a fog, napping while "watching" television and drifting through the day exactly as I did the previous week.  But today, I feel fine, alert, a lot more energetic and happily more like myself.   I am very pleased to not feel unbalanced anymore as I did all of last week and I am thrilled with my distance vision.

​Some of the things I have noticed already are:  that I can watch television without glasses at all (amazing!), I can read the bathroom scale and any clock in the house without glasses (astounding!), Tim walked into the room a few minutes ago and when I looked up I could see his face, I mean really see it, every single detail, without glasses (incredible!).  When I look out a window, I can see every leaf on every tree and read license plates on cars (whoa!).  

​But the biggest wow I'm experiencing is with light and colour.  The different natural lights coming through the window throughout the day is unlike anything I've noticed before, ever. I am just so overwhelmed by it.  It's almost mesmerizing to me. I can't stop marveling over it.  And no colour looks like I thought it did. None of them. Not a single one.  The subtle differences between shades has my brain just scrambled and I love it.

​On the other hand, I cannot read anything close up. Nothin'.  Not a book, a newspaper, my cell phone, a prescription bottle or my computer screen.  Sooooo readers. Okay. I can do that.

​In the short term, for the next month, I will be a slave to the various eyedrops I've been assigned and my eyes will continue to improve (for distance!  Even more improvement!  Will I be able to see things on Mars?)  And I'm sure I will adjust and stop being a goofball about light and colour.  I mean, yesterday late afternoon, I completely stopped talking in the middle of a sentence to oogle over the backlit bougainvilla I could see out the kitchen window.  Eventually  I will stop doing that. But I hope I never stop appreciating it because it was stunningly beautiful.

​So, that's the biggest thing going on here.  I see the doc again today for a follow up appointment.  I keep using the drops for a month.  I start getting into my normal routine as of today. I get back to Pilates next week (and that will be pathetic after three weeks off) and at some point, I will be very brave and get behind the wheel of the car again.

​I promise to talk about something completely different tomorrow!  I SWEAR!