Wednesday Ordeal with Eye

Wednesday might

Shortly after I posted to my blog yesterday, I sat in my chair, leaned back and took my finger and rubbed my eyelid under my glasses. I imagined going blind by morning. My eye had been bothering me so for the last few hours, anyway. So, I tried to call the emergency number for the primary eye doctor and could not figure out how to leave a number message. So, I called the oncall doctor of the surgeon in Birmingham.

The surgeon on call cheerfully assured me I was okay. The primary eye doctor here was stern.

When I went to bed around midnight, I tossed and turned and could not sleep for the pain in my eye. Finally, after getting up to go to the bathroom four or five times, I took two more melatonin and went to sleep immediately. The phone was off and I awoke around noon.

Thursday

Finally, around 1:00 pm I called for an appointment for him to look at my eye. I felt no one was happy with me and tried to talk me out of my discomfort, but I got an appointment for 4:45 pm. The tech said my eyesight was still 20/20, “just like yesterday.” Dr. came in and was fussing at me. He looked in my eye and saw what was hurting me—a piece of some kind of “fuzz”  that was stuck “right in the wound.” You would have thought I did it on purpose.

He anesthetized my eye with drops. Seeing him coming toward my eyeball with pointy tweezers was not fun at all. But, he got it muttering that it looked like fuzz off a Q-tip or a Kleenex. I have not used a Q-tip for anything since surgery. The last Kleenex I used was handed me by his tech. So there!

My eye felt wonderful after he removed the fuzz. He said that was the drops that made me feel nothing. Well, the drops were put in at 5 pm. Now, at 11 pm, I still feel no pain at all. The pain with every blink is gone. OH! The strange thing was I could “see” my heartbeat. That quit, too, after the fuzz removal.

Then, he had a calm voice, but stern words of warning that “you need to follow directions about putting in the eye drops.” I was horrified, embarrassed, and shocked. When I objected and tried to show him the little chart given me where I checked off drops as I used them, he would not look and repeated twice more his warning that was more accusation. I still feel the sting of that. When I go back on Tuesday for my one-week checkup, I am going to tell him about it in a well-rehearsed objection. It is like he looked at me and decided I was not compliant!

There is no way I would not be compliant because this is my eyesight, something I value more than a limb. Okay, maybe I could spare one eye. lol

Fuzz stuck “in the wound,” as he put it, is not caused by lack of eye drops! Since I was the last patient, he may have been annoyed he had to stay until 5:15.

At this point, it will be a long time before I have the other eye done. I may just get a new lens for the right eye. There is no law one must have both lens in the glasses changed. I still have astigmatism. Reading close up with more ease is not possible, but far objects and print are sooo much better than before surgery.

At any rate, we all decided I should wear the little eye shield all the time instead of just at bedtime. However, the tape is burning my skin. So, I will wear it judiciously during the day. But, I will wear it every night for the next month. I cannot figure any place that will allow me to lie down or even has a chair to scrunch down in. Maybe I can go to the sixties’ style coffee house and snag an upholstered chair that is cast off and sweaty. Yes, I carry something to throw over it. Otherwise, I come home smelling like flop sweat.

Charter will come out Saturday between 3 pm and 5 pm to hook up my internet. Until then, I cannot read blogs. Well, I can, but I cannot sit up at BK or anywhere for long or my back will hurt too much the next few days.

So, shortly, I will go two blocks to the library and post this. At this point, I cannot tell anything was done to my eye, unlike the last 24 hours of discomfort since I managed to get “a piece of fuzz in the wound.”

Just thought of something—maybe the doctor was so mean to me because I was right about something being wrong with my eye this afternoon. Only I could manage to get “a piece of fuzz in the wound.” Yes, those were his words.  

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1:30 am Friday morning, posting and cannot tell anything ever happened to my eye.