I'd had a bit of trouble with my distance vision. Nothing too bad, but I knew that it could only get worse and I needed to sharpen up the detail. I'd been looking at laser surgery but I was told that wasn't the right procedure for me. There was an alternative - lens replacement. That's a procedure where they remove your natural eye lens, the one you were given at birth (or strictly speaking, a tad before that, I just don't remember). Sounds horrendous! None of us want people mucking about with our eyes. But, after extensive investigation into the procedure, I decided to go for it! Both eyes at once, bit like a two-for-one thing but without the price deal! I had to go to Leicester to get it done.
Anyway, I got there and I was given a form to sign that says you accept all the different ways your surgery can go horribly wrong, including the ultimate ‘fail’, death! With pen poised above the dotted line, I’m thinking, ‘hang on, do I really want to do this? I mean, I can actually see already. Okay, sometimes people appear blurry, but I can think of several who look better that way so, uh, does that matter?’ I then began to search the form for the bit that might have all the upbeat, happy clappy positive stuff about lens replacement surgery (a word that, due to my dodgy eyes, I often read as ‘sugary’ but there was nothing ‘sugary’ about the ‘death form.’) I scanned the marketing stuff and found the words that said this surgery can be ‘life changing’ but I had already established that from the form. Then I remembered that I had paid the equivalent of half a day’s wages for a very average Premier League footballer, to have my eyes sliced into and realised I was at zero hour with no money back. So I shut my doomed eyes and signed.
The guy who collected the form offered me a drink and I was given a coffee that was strong enough for the caffeine to send my heart rate into high intensity work-out territory, something I didn’t need given that my adrenaline levels were already such that I could have taken a beating from Mike Tyson and still said, “that all you got, sucka?”
I was then taken to a room next to the theatre - the room, that is, where they carry out the sugary… err, surgery... not Leicester’s finest cultural performance building to watch a show (if indeed they have one) - where I had a consultation with a nurse. She took my blood pressure and I swear I saw the monitor start to glow. However, she seemed satisfied with 230/120 so I assumed that most patients who are about to have their eyes slit open are in the ‘abject terror’ reading range. Then she put what felt like a pint of eye drops into both of my eyes, separate shots made up of eye cleaning fluid, anaesthetic and an infection prevention liquid. To finish off, she placed a plastic head cover over my hair so that I looked like I was about to enter a nuclear facility.
Next I was taken into the theatre proper, which was staffed by three nurses and the surgeon who was to perform the procedure. I surreptitiously checked him for shaky hands, you know, just in case he’d been out the night before in Wetherspoon’s and had sunk several pints of cheap ale (well, it was Saturday morning and even surgeons are entitled to a social life.) I was asked to lie on a trolley bed and had a pillow placed under my legs, behind my knees, by one of the nurses. I’m not sure why that was done and just assumed that the nurse had intended it to go behind my head but perhaps she had never actually had her own eyesight checked.
So then, the surgeon placed what felt like a giant one piece oven glove over my eyes and opened a section of the material exposing the first eye he was to work on, my right eye. He poured another couple of pints of liquid into it and then proceeded to apply a clamp to keep it open. Yes, a clamp! Like some bondage routine - uh, not that I'm used to... I digress! At that point I began to question why I’d elected to have both eyes done and started to wish I was a cyclops. In fairness to the surgeon he did explain what he was doing and about to do, although none of his dialogue gave me an option to suggest alternatives. I reckon he was leaving ‘stuff’ out too, and he mentioned ‘iris’ a couple of times. I assumed he was speaking to one of the nurses and ignored it.
Next he shone a light into my eye that seemed brighter than a deep space quasar, so bright that it eliminated my ability to see anything else at all. Maybe that, along with giving the surgeon something to see with, was the point. I wouldn’t notice the difference when he obliterated the lens that nature had given me… uh… a while back!
The next few minutes went by in a blur, as you’d expect, with my awareness only that of moving lights and floods of liquid. I started to wonder if I’d ever see again. Then I began to get some clarity around the edges of my vision but the middle was still a blur. To my alarm, the surgeon said, “That’s that one done.” I’m thinking, ‘done? That it? I could see better when I got here and that was my dodgy eye!’
Unaware of my mental turmoil, the surgeon then went ahead with exactly the same procedure on my other eye, the left one. Fifteen minutes later, he declared that it was all done, removed the ‘oven glove’ and I could see.
At first I thought I had entered an alien spacecraft but then realised I was staring at the lights in the room which had developed an extremely bright white halo around them. The rest of the room was super bright too, the sort of celestial ‘whiteness’ you’d expect if you’d just walked through the gates of Heaven. Perhaps I had! A moment of shock coursed through me and I reached down for the sides of the trolley bed to see if I was still in contact with earthly ‘stuff.’
I was still trying to adjust and re-orientate when a voice that I assumed belonged to Iris, asked if I could sit up. I hoped I could as the procedure had been on my eyes only. I raised myself into a seating position and swung my legs around so I was sitting on the edge of the trolley bed. I’d obviously been a tad too enthusiastic hoping to demonstrate my powers of recovery and I swayed slightly to one side as an instant dizzy spell hit.
“Are you okay?” Iris asked.
I nodded. I mean, I’ve had dizzy spells, seen fuzzy lights and been totally disorientated before, usually on a Saturday night when out with hardcore drinking mates, but I didn’t mention that to Iris.
After a few minutes I was taken to the recovery room where Iris taped two plastic see-through shields over my eyes so that, with my plastic hair attire, I actually did look like I’d just emerged from an alien spaceship. Iris then proceeded to tell me all the things I must not do in the coming days.
When she’d finished I said, “So, to sum up, basically, I should just sit on the sofa with my eyes shut for a week!”
Iris smiled and said, “Have you got anyone to look after you?"
My first thought was, 'I'm not five,' but I thought about it. Okay, I live on my own, so wondered what the downside was. I asked Iris.
"Well, your eyes need a while to settle down and you may find that there is some blurriness, so you might need some help with basic things, like cooking, putting the kettle on, that sort of thing."
"How long for?" I asked.
"It should settle after the first week but probably around a month."
A month! I could starve to death in that time.
Iris saw my concern. "Most people find it settles quite quickly but if you have someone who could help, that is useful."
I don't and I’m unlikely to find anyone if I have to wear this outfit for weeks, I thought, but I just said that I could manage on my own. I then asked, unnecessarily perhaps, given Iris’s list of ‘don’ts’, if I was able to play tennis.
Iris got cheeky. “I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “Have you had lessons?” She saw my confused look as I began to stutter a reply. “I’m teasing. No, no physically activity.”
I said nothing, surprised by Iris’s jokey bedside manner and wondered if she was going to carry me to the car if all physical activity was banned.
My recovery concluded after fifteen or so minutes. Iris gave me six bottles of eye drops but no barley sugar sweet for being a good boy and sent me on my way. I was allowed to remove my plastic alien eye shields and put on my sunglasses, the only time I have had a legitimate reason for wearing sunglasses indoors. The upside is, I can walk around like a flippin' rock star... and I may buy a jaunty hat to enhance the look!
Now, the getting back to normal stage. We'll see... or at least I hope so!
