On Sunday we chilled out, rolled out of bed at lunchtime, completely steamrolling over the lack of an hour, and went to Bybrook for dinner and to acquire a couple of new fiskies. A Blue Guppy, and a Gold Orange. Actually, the Orange part is in Latin, but I can’t pronounce it, let alone remember it.
Chris took me to the train station at around 5, we kissed goodbye and I tripped over the curb on the way into the station. After one train that failed to arrive and two platform changes, I departed for London at 5.45. Arrived without further incident at Jill’s, drank diet coke due to being unable to consume alcohol and went to bed at 10, setting alarm for 5.30. Remembered at 11 why I don’t drink caffeine before bedtime.
Eventually dozed off and awoke at 1.30. At 4.30 still awake, so decided to have breakfast then as I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything after 5.50, but had been instructed to ensure I had breakfast; hence 5.30 alarm. Breakfast in the form of an emergency Snickers bar and a glass of milk was consumed and alarm reset for 6.30. Alarm woke me up, was dressed and ready to go at 6.45. Taxi was due at 6.45 and arrived at 7.
Not that I was at all nervous at any point whatsoever at all. Honest.
Taxi man said not to worry about the time, control had given him strict instruction to get me to Collindale by 7.45 and that is what he would do. As Jill requested, I told him that while Loraine Road (where Jill lives) was two way up until a couple of months ago, it was now one way and he was pointing the wrong way. He turned around, pulled over and got out the A to Z which he kept on the steering wheel at all times.
Not that I was worrying. At all.
True to his word tho, after much zigzaggy and back street driving, two red lights before I stopped looking, and one or two possible thoroughfares that I’m not actually convinced were roads at all, we arrived at 7.30. Impressed.
Checked into clinic, and at 7.45 a young lady a couple of years younger than me by the name of Angela arrived, and once she checked in, we were both ushered upstairs to the surgical area. Pick an eye, they said, so we both picked our left and wandered around with a big X over our left eye for a while. Lots of eyedrops and a really really really sexy set of lime green scrubs, open at the back and everything, later Agnette, the clinic manager whipped my glasses away, took me by the hand and led me to the theatre. Big Gulp time now, and wondering if I really want to be here. Not even dad spinning the bucket at the top of the ferris wheel in Bagatelle was as terrifying as this.
Agnette handed me over to Nurse John who kept asking me if I was sure it was the left eye and not the right. Agnette told him I was The One Who Was Having Both Done Today, and he said, ooh well we’d better get it right then hadn’t we? I think he was trying to be funny. Then met the Dutch anaesthetist, who has an exceptionally warped sense of humour. However was a nice man. A very very nice man. Cannula insertion stung, but whatever he did after that was very very nice. Did I mention he was a very very very nice man? The mad professor came in to do the op and said hello, asked how I was feeling, but as nothing was actually working at that point, I just grinned. I think.
Right eye got covered up left got splurked, with something brown which gave a nice sepia effect to everything. Imagine lying on the seabed of Dover Harbour, and looking up at the surface. That’s what the entire op was like. No clue what was happening, lots of refracted brown shadows, and then brown went to black in left eye, right was uncovered and Nurse John said take two deep breaths and sit up. So I did.
Wheeeeeeeee!
Nurse John navigated me through the theatre which was kinda bendy and handed me over to Nurse Bridie in recovery. Ten minutes later the bendy thing had stopped, and Angela appeared. We agreed that op was a doddle and the drugs were good.
Agnette took us down to the lounge area where we got fed biccies and tea. Angela got to leave at 9.30, and Agnette set me up in a corner to wait the six hours until they’d check to see if I could have the second eye done. She even let me put my feet up on another chair and everything. Very happy, very spoilt. Especially when the biccies kept coming.
Met several interesting people during the six hours. Patricia and Gwen (mum and daughter) who came down from Glasgow for Gwen to have the same op. Gwen’s coming back down next week for the other eye with hubby and kids. By train. It’s sixty-five quid return?! And to think a return from Ashford, just forty miles up the road from London is £35…
And then there was Don and Mike (I think), who was there for one of Don’s cataracts. And Susie was there with her hubby. Very attractive is Susie and hubby had bought the op for her. She had a prescription of -17. That’s blinder than a bats bum to the uninitiated. (I’m/was -8).
At 3, Agnette took me to see Doc Robert, a very nice South African chappie who comes from Gansbaai (Shark country!). He took off the bandage, and I remarked that I couldn’t see squat out of that eye. Feeling suddenly intelligent, I quickly added that I thought it might be because I was looking at the inside of my eyelid.
He snorted and politely agreed before lifting up eyelid, and I could see the back wall. He had a good look, and cleared me for second eye.
This time I went up by myself, and waited with the person ahead of me by the name of Richard. He was having second eye done, and went into great lengths about the post op care. He’d had his first eye done in January, taken himself straight down the boozer, ignored the drugs he was sent home with and wondered why an eye infection rocked up a week later, which put him out of commission for a month before everything was well again. So he was determined the he and anyone else who would listen wasn’t going to suffer the same fate.
There are two theatres for the ICL (Implantable Contact Lens) ops (cataracts have a third theatre and a different surgeon), and each theatre has a full team, but the mad professor is the only surgeon who can do ICL, so he does an op in one theatre while the theatre preps the next patient, and so on. Very practiced, slick and clinical.
Richard vanished and Susie arrived, as nervous as hell, and I was all well it’s a doddle the worst bit is the cannula going in. I don’t think she believed me. Sexy scrubs and all and the process is repeated same as before, but this time I went into the same theatre with the same team who were full of, ‘it’s you again!’ and the anaesthetist begging to be my guide dog. At least I think that’s what he was saying but by that time he’d given me the good stuff again.
No bendy things this time since I had eye patches on both eyes. They took a vote and Nurse John got to be my guide dog and took me out to Nurse Bridie in recovery. Ten minutes later the bendy thing had stopped, and Susie appeared. We agreed that op was a doddle and the drugs were good.
Left eyepatch was removed and I could see well enough mid distance and straight ahead to get by and was taken down to the lounge by Agnette and fed more biccies and tea, and had a very nice Indian lady operate my mobile phone for me. Armed with the entire contents of a Boots Pharmacy I was given permission to leave at 5. Taxi man came and got me and escorted literally door to door to Jill's, including steps and doors.
Would probably have been worried that I could only see mid distance all that evening, but was too stoned to care.
Woke up Tuesday, and left eye could see perfectly at all distances.
Happiness carried me all the way home, where I very suddenly realised that energy levels were zero, and with the aid of sedatives and painkillers Tuesday through Thursday was a bit of a drunken blur. Noticed however, that the Gold Orange fiskie was AWOL, and concluded he hadn’t survived the relocation (common occurrence).
Thursday afternoon everything was much clearer, with sedatives out of system, and just on one painkiller, but energy levels still low, but needed provisions. Cat food and chocolate being high on the list, since I’d already stocked up with microwave meals. Contemplated walking to Asda, got the entire four yards to the bottom of my drive decided that was a bad idea with zero energy levels. Got in car and drove to Sainsbury’s instead. That worked well, and as it was by Bybrook, and because Chris had been so disappointed by the AWOLness of Gold Orange, I decided it was a good idea to get another Gold Orange and pretend it hadn’t gone AWOL at all. Drove home. Decided I wouldn’t drive again until at least Friday, when the painkillers wore off.
Put new Gold Orange in tank. It went AWOL too within a couple of hours. Another couple of hours later, two Gold Oranges materialise holding fins and generally deciding to be social. Bugger. Now I’ll have to confess up to what I did.
Friday morning, energy levels pinged back up to normal levels and eyes stop looking like red tomatoes. Discovered we have two snails in aquarium that aren’t supposed to be there. Oh well.
I have to wear eyepatches at night until Tuesday, which Chris thinks is hysterically funny (vengeance will be mine!), and keep squirting in the antibiotics four times a day for another ten days, and best of all, I get to wear sunglasses indoors and at night and legitimately blow raspberries at anyone who comments.
All is good, and hope all above is not too boring.
Woke up this morning to loud clatter; lounge curtains fell down, curtain rail and all. Two kittens sitting by looking very smug, one kitten hiding mewling very pitifully. Wonder whose fault that was then.
Tomorrow we plan to go to the London Dive Show, and Tuesday is my follow-up eye check in Sunny Croydon.
