CYCLOPS EAT YOUR HEART OUT

When facing my second cataract surgery, I was told that,”No two eyes are the same.” I’m sure that is true, but I must add that no two surgical experiences are the same either.

My dear friend, and travel agent, Terry, picked me up for the drive across town to the eye hospital. I figured, “She got me to China. Surely she can get me to my operation.” We arrived on time, with five minutes to spare, and a one-hour-sit-around the waiting room. Obviously, the surgeon had run into a problem earlier in the day, and his already screwy schedule, was screwed around a bit more.

When the nurse finally called my name, I shouted, “Bingo!” Then I was escorted into the prep room. My affable nurse, Don, hooked me up to the heart rate and blood pressure machines, deposited, a funny hat on my head, and proceeded to put what seemed like a thousand various drops into my right eye.

He then picked up a needle and started to poke at the tiny veins in my left hand, so the anesthesiologist could insert the happy sauce before the surgery. The veins in my left hand rolled away from his needle once and then twice. Then he started to poke the right hand—once and then twice. By now, I was hoping that the anesthesiologist would use a hammer, and put me out of my misery.

Finally, nurse Don found a cooperative vein higher up on my inner arm. He taped the needle tightly, and then he, and another nurse, lowered my head, and began to wheel me into the operating arena, but the bed abruptly stopped moving. The cords to my vitals monitor had somehow gotten tangled into the wheels of the bed. One nurse sat on the floor trying to untangle them, and Don leaned over me to help her.

In a muted voice I said, “You are lying on my face.” When he had applied the final eye drops, Don, the nurse, had ordered me not to touch my eye, but he didn’t say anything about removing his chest from my face. When the nurses finally untangled the cords, Don apologized profusely and put more sanitizer drops around my eye.  

Finally, I was wheeled into the operating room where I spied many masked people. My head was strapped to the table, my eye was pried open and the anesthesiologist came in (I think it was the anesthesiologist and not the custodian) and put the happy juice into my arm.

I was partially awake when the miracle-maker surgeon started operating on my eye. He told me to look at the lights, and politely told me not to talk. So I said, “Okay!” The next thing I remember was lying in the recovery room. I was unstrapped and had a new lens in my eye.

Terry took me home, and I behaved, because my next trip is to Cuba, and I want her to book me on a return passage. So now, it’s drops time. I need to apply lots of drops into both eyes for a month. No problem, because I made some fancy check-off charts for each week.  I check off, drop one, drop two, drop three in the morning.  I check off drop one and drop two in the afternoon, and then I check off…one glass of wine.  Here’s looking at you kid!

Esther Blumenfeld