REAL Pirates Don't Wear Glasses

Aging definitely has some benefits. I feel more confident in my skin (other than the fact that it keeps sagging and wrinkling), and I have become more relaxed about little things in life. One thing I’m not crazy about is the medical issues that come up as a result of aging. This week’s deal was the first of two cataract surgeries for me. All along the way, I was assured that it would be a simple procedure that had a great record of success. I remember that cataract surgery sounded wonderful and simple when my parents had it, but now that it was my turn, I had some questions.

At my pre-op appointment, my ophthalmologist answered all my questions.

1.      When can I go back to work? Two days later

2.      Will I have lifting restrictions? You can lift 25-30 pounds almost immediately afterward. (Good, because my grandson is 25-30 pounds.)

3.      When can I drive? As soon as the eye patch comes off

4.      What will my vision be like afterward? There is an option to get a lens implanted that corrects astigmatism. If I went with that choice, I likely would only need glasses for reading. I almost made that choice, but a couple other individual factors (including it is expensive and not covered by insurance) led me to just take a regular lens. It will correct my nearsightedness, so my vision will likely improve, but I will still need glasses. 

I do have a few more unknowns because of a second eye condition I have called Fuchs’ (pronounced Fewks) Dystrophy, but the hope was that this corneal disease would not be much of a factor. My doctor indicated that people with Fuchs’ sometimes take longer for their eyes to heal after cataract surgery.

So what is a cataract? As I read about eyes, I learned a few things about the lenses that God gave us. First, they’re very flexible when we are born but become more rigid over time. That is why we end up needing readers or bifocals for near vision as we age. Cataracts are the clouding of our lenses that occurs when the proteins of the lenses break down as we age.

Cataract surgery is fairly common. Everyone’s eyes will eventually get cataracts if they live long enough, but people need surgery only when the cataracts become visually significant. At 64 years old, I am a bit on the younger edge of the age range for cataract surgery (not including outliers). My main difficulty was with night vision. It was as if a special effect had been applied to every light in my field of vision, with multiple effects overlapping until I was terrified that I would not be able to see a pedestrian or critter in my path at night. I basically forbade myself from night driving for the past six to nine months. It happened gradually, so I can’t exactly remember when it got so bad that it scared me. By the time I decided on surgery, I didn’t even like to be a passenger in a car at night. The visual distortions were unsettling. I wish I could recreate an image of what night driving looks like to me, but I haven't figured out how to do that.

Cataract surgery is done outpatient. They do one eye at a time, typically with the second surgery about a month after the first. For some reason, they want you to have one “good” eye at all times. 😊 The procedure itself takes under half an hour with a local anesthetic and sometimes light sedation. First, they slit the cornea 2-3 mm to gain access to the lens. Then the old, clouded lens is broken/emulsified into tiny pieces using ultrasound energy (called phacoemulsification) and vacuumed out of the eye. A new, synthetic lens is placed in the eye and you’re good to go with no stitches or anything. The slit in the cornea will heal on its own. The eye is patched, with a return visit the next day to remove the patch. Eyedrops are prescribed to help the eye heal without infection.

Here’s a good indicator that I’m a preschool teacher. When I described a few details of my surgery to my offspring, one line of my description went like this: “I will have a patched eye overnight, until I go back for a post-op visit the next morning. So, I'll basically be a pirate for 24 hours.” The next day, when I prayed with my fellow preschool staff – I kid you not – someone there asked me if I got to be a pirate. I smiled and said, “YES!” If I haven’t said it recently, I love those people I work with. They were only disappointed that my time as a pirate would be while I was still off work. There were even offers to spiff up my eye patch so I could be a fancy pirate.

All facts in place, and now that I’m on the other side of the surgery, I do have some personal reflections on this whole process. First, I overestimated the glamour of being a pirate. My glasses did not fit well over the eye shield, which meant my bifocal was in the wrong place for the one eye that could see. The far vision wasn’t perfect, either. It was a tough 24 hours. I determined that REAL pirates must not wear glasses. I was very glad to get the patch removed this morning and end my brief stint as a pirate, after being reminded how much I take good vision for granted.

Sitting in the waiting area, getting ready

Post-op recovery pic

A pirate with wonky glasses

Me, trying to find the bifocal so I can read.

For me, the whole procedure, leaving home to getting back home again, was just a few minutes over two hours. I had my surgery done at the Mayo Clinic, and they really have everything down to a system. The time from when I was wheeled out of the “prep” room until I was back there with the surgery completed was a mere 25 minutes. Even though I understood that going in, it still amazed me. They told me everything went very well. The intravenous sedation was very mild. I was aware of the whole procedure, but they said they do it to keep patients relaxed as they work. The local anesthesia was a little bit painful going in, but not bad. It took several hours to wear off. When I got home, my forehead and cheek were still numb. For anyone who has had dental work, you know that feeling of your face slowly coming back to life. It’s a tingly-itchy sort of sensation. I was tired and needed to rest my eyes more than normal on that first day. At one point, I spent 20 minutes looking for my glasses, which were, in fact, on my face at the time. 😊 That definitely meant it was nap time! Somewhere mid-evening I had a bit of pain in my eye. I took a couple of Tylenol and haven’t needed anything else since.

On the day after surgery (today) I got my eye shield removed. One of the techs did a quick eye check and then put in some numbing drops to do some tests to measure my cornea. After that, I saw my ophthalmologist. He said my eye looked just the way he would expect it to look on “day one” for someone with cornea disease. My vision is still cloudy, and I don’t see well with or without my glasses. I can’t tell if the cloudiness is from the surgery or from the multiple eye drops that have gone in my eye today. Time will tell! My surgeon says the eye should stay the same or get better each day. I have no pain and feel really good, with no real restrictions (other than avoiding getting poked in the eye, which is the way I prefer to live my life anyway). I am allowed to drive, but I will wait until the cloudiness in that surgical eye clears up a bit more before I attempt that. I have a return appointment in three weeks, and if the first eye is healed enough at that time, we will do surgery on the second eye. Otherwise, we might wait a bit longer for that second eye. In the meantime, I will be on a schedule of many daily eye drops for the eye that had surgery, to help it heal. I have been blessed by many friends and family members praying for me throughout the surgery and the healing process.

Day after surgery - no visible marks
other than maybe some redness by the
corner of my eye

I still have a long way to go in this process, but I thought it might help someone else to read about my experience with cataract surgery. I have a few friends who recently went through this process as well, and their insights helped me. And possibly you will enjoy the 24-hour pirate experience more than I did! Aye, mateys!

Gotta have some fun! I found the pirate patch in our dress-up box and did some pirate-posing!