Today I begin my third day of recovery from an endothelial transplant in my left (good eye – actually my only eye.) Please forgive any typos as I really can’t see what I’m typing. Once my wife returns home, she’ll clean it up (believe me, she’s used to cleaning up my messes…)
The surgery went very well and I felt great even after the surgery. This was my 13th, but my first non-glaucoma surgery. My last surgery in 2003 (a trab) left me nauceous within an hour after leaving the hospital. This was only my second eye surgery in the modern, you can’t stay a minute longer than necessary era. For example, I had a trab in May, 1980. I checked into the hospital on a Monday afternoon, surgery was Tuesday morning, and I went home on Friday at lunchtime. Modern era trab in 2003: check-in at 7:00, surgery around 8:00, leave by lunchtime – all in the same day! Thursday’s procedure was similar. We checked in between 9:30 and 10:00, went into the OR about 11:15, and checked out about 2:15.
The biggest difference today over the “dark ages” of medicine is that I remained mostly awake. So I was able to talk to the doctor and he gave me regular updates. He also apologized in advance for the black eye he knew I’d have the next day. Seems he hit a blood vessel while numbing my eye (I was asleep for that.) We have a picture which we’ll post soon…
My first day was awful. As I was getting dressed, I began to feel sick. We drove back into Wills for the day after check-up. That was the second longest 30 minute ride of my life (the ride home was the longest.) The check-up itself went well. The doctor said things were looking good. He again apologized for the shiner he gave me. The only problem was my IOP had jumped to 24. He put me on a glaucoma med and told me to return on Tuesday unless I had any problems. We left his office and began to head for the car. I felt really sick, so we stopped at the bathroom. I got sick for the first time in about 23 years (and that was self-inflicted.) I got sick again on the ride home and then about two hours after getting home. We called the doctor to see if this could be from the anesthesia or just a virus. He was concerned that it could be from the high IOP (interocular pressure.) He wanted us to come back to Wills to have my IOP checked again. I begged to let me sleep for a couple of hours and have a drop of the glaucoma med to see if that would help. He agreed. He called back later in the evening when I was feeling better. We all agreed that we could wait until the morning to do anything more.
The second day started with a call from the doctor. Since I was feeling much better, we told him we thought we could wait until Tuesday to see him again. After showering very carefully so that I didn’t get water in my eye, I got dressed. Unlike the day before, I got dressed without incident. We had some delicious english muffins from Wolferman’s (thanks Stephanie & Alex!) and headed over to our business, Salon Supplies + Interiors. We only stayed about 30 minutes to see how things were going in my absence and then headed home for some rest. My vision was better than the day before, but not well enough to walk around the business by myself.
Today, my vision is a bit better than yesterday, but still not great. I cannot read what I am typing, though I could see well enough to click the mouse in the address bar to navigate to here and login. I watched (okay, listened) to the Eagles win over the Giants. Why is it when I watch them I wonder how they are going to blow a game? I guess that is what you get growing up in the Philly area. I was born just a couple of months after the infamous 1964 Phillies collapse. Fortunately, the ’07 & ’08 Mets have been more dramatic failures…
It’s back to work tomorrow. I’m not sure how useful I’ll be, but I’ve got to get back. Hopefully I’ll be exhausted tomrrow night from all the business we’re going to do. If were not too busy, I could always take a nap on a very nice Oakworks sallon bed. How comfy is it? Stop in and try it out!