#cataract surgery
Warren Zevon - My Shit’s Fucked Up" (lyrics)
Another early morning trip to Lund, though to a different part of the university medical complex this time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ No sedation or invasive procedures this time, just getting my eyes peered into yet again and discussing the prospect of more in the near future.
Had just escaped here, and was feeling just about as pleased as I looked. Pretty sure that was an attempt at Neutral Face, btw.
On the plus side? This time we did only get to pay the standard 300kr/roughly $30 copay for the office visit, and not the 2000kr Special Foreign Devil Rate. They did apparently have my brand new personnummer set up in the system now, so all of this shit should be fully covered moving forward. (The High Cost Protection should have already MORE than kicked in from what we’ve paid already, so we might even get the 300kr refunded too? )
After getting checked out by two different eye surgery specialists (they only do actual surgery in Lund)–with the sinking feeling you might expect when the first one was obviously concerned enough at what she was seeing to call someone else in? Complete with another ultrasound, because that’s not worrying enough already?
Yep, looks like they were very likely wrong in Malmö last time. They want to do that damned vitrectomy, but are also not entirely sure what they will find in there once the blood is vacuumed out of the way. There may be a detached retina lurking back there too, after all. It may just be a glob of blood looking suspiciously like a detached bit of the retina. Didn’t exactly sound promising either way, as businesslike as they were about the whole mess.
(They also sounded pretty appalled that I didn’t get any laser treatments well before I did. That retina really was seriously fucked by the time they started trying to patch it together here. And I was glad enough to throw the damned NHS straight under the wheels of the bus they spent years building, if as diplomatically as I could manage.)
Oh yes, and I apparently also get a bonus lens implant while they’re in there! Because Haunted Eyeball’s latest spectacular tantrum apparently also fucked up the lens and caused a sudden cararact. Which might help explain the general level of blurriness behind the freaking swirly dark blood haze, yeah.
Again, on the plus side? No signs of glaucoma anywhere, at least. And they are apparently wanting to knock me the fuck out to do invasive things to my eyeball. They’re not sure exactly how long it will take, so want to just use general anesthesia–which they normally wouldn’t for a straightforward eyeball jelly scooping.
(OTOH, that evidently may mean a fight to get that done on a totally outpatient basis. But, it’s a massive HELL NO from me otherwise. Hard limit there, especially after that last time when I basically got held prisoner after inpatient surgery.)
At any rate, at least that bit of anticipation and dread is over. Even if the cataract came as a complete surprise. We do have a little better idea of what is happening, if not exactly when yet. They are hoping to get a slot opened up to bring me back to talk to an anesthesiologist in a couple of weeks, with surgery maybe a week after that.
So yeah, the apparent urgency doesn’t have me at all concerned, either. At least they are, indeed, going ahead and actually providing whatever treatment they are deeming fit–with actual informed consent. As on, they’re actually talking to me and not getting all pissy when I do have some questions. And I have not been lectured or snarked at one single time, about anything.
Can’t say I’m looking forward to any of what’s coming with this, other than getting it over with. Not much liking my chances of keeping anything like full vision in that eye, but here’s hoping we can indeed get at least enough back to let me drive again.
Today I had cataract surgery. The ophthalmologist removed the cloudy lens in my right lens and replaced it with an acrylic lens. I had been dreading this surgery for years. The thought of someone cutting my eye with a razor-sharp diamond scalpel was more than I could deal with.
Afraid as I was of surgery, I was also afraid of not being able to drive at night. Night driving had become a frightening ordeal .When you have a full blown cataract, the glare of oncoming headlines turns the darkness into a wall of white light, which is not fun when you’re driving on a two-lane highway.. I scoured youtube for cataract surgery videos. As my ignorance of cataracts diminished, I was able to schedule surgery for my eye.
