All My Eye - The Operation.
When you look at the various web-sites about eye surgery the whole thing all looks a bit horrific, but remember, you are fast asleep while all this is going on. I can honestly say that the operation was about like a tooth extraction, and the first week after was about like recovering from a moderate dose of flu.

  
April 24th.

I was first on the list in the morning and the operation was done under general anaesthetic.  It was the first time I'd ever had it, and I found it completely unscary. One minute I was lying on the operating table with a cold arm and a fainting sensation, next minute it was an hour and three quarters later.

My eye was covered, and it didn't hurt much at all. It felt a bit "scratchy" - as though there were a few grains of sand in it. What I did have though, was the mother and father of all headaches, but the nurses gave me paracetamol for that, and by the following day it had more or less gone. Whether that was the op or the anaesthetic I don't know .

Without going into detail, because you can find this stuff elsewhere, I was told that for the next five days I'd have to keep my head face down for most of the time. This was to keep the repaired retina in the gas bubble which had been left in the eye, and is called "posturing".

April 25th.

Early this morning the eye patch was removed, and a nurse ungummed my eyelids for me. The surgeon gave me the "once over", and said things were fine so far, to keep posturing, and come back in three weeks. By lunch time, I was back home.

It's worth mentioning, that immediately after the operation I could still see the black patch in my upper right field of view. This was to be expected, and it disappeared over the next few days as the retina recovered.

 

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