EPISODE 1,201: CATARACT SURGERY…NERVOUS ? WHO WOULD NOT BE NERVOUS?
alan skeoch
january 7, 2025
“Alan, your surgeon, Dr. Khan, is on the phone!”
“Hello…what a surprise…a phone call Sunday evening,”
“How are you?”
“Fine…no need for glasses any more.
“That’s fine.”
“If you need an assistant surgeon, give me a call, I was able to watch
what you did to my right eye as both eyes were open.”
I was joking, of course. My comment was partly true though. I was conscious
and watching…or it seemed so. Dr. Khan had precision tools to make a slight
incision in my eyeball then extricate my lens and replace it with a new lens.
That sounds so simple.
I was scared from the moment a nurse slid me onto a wheeled stretcher to
the moment she wheeled me down a long hallway at Queensway Hospital
to the operating room. Just the thought of cutting my eyeball made me
feel wobbly.
The whole operation was done in a few minutes then I was wheeled into
a recovery room and offered apple juice. “Can I have a second
apple juice”? “Sure…you will be going home shortly.”
That is my story in a nutshell. Catatact surgery has been perfected.
Wish I had not read so much about it. I belong to the ‘what can go
wrong, will go wrong’ school of thought.
Noting went wrong.
“The eyedrops are the biggest problem, Alan,” said friend John Myers.
And he is correct. Three kinds of eyedrops have to be dropped into
the eye before and after surgery. That is not easy to do.
I am lucky. Marjorie does the eye dropping and she does this
four times a day with a three minute pause between drops each session.
“Open your eye…here comes a drop.”
WHAT IF I DID NOT HAVE MARJORIE?
IT is difficult to do eyedrops into your own eye. But that is what
a great number of patients face. Living alone they must be their
own nurse. Every time Marjorie says “Hold still !” I cringe and
feel sorry for myself. What a fool I am! Imagine being alone.
Well I bet there are a lot of people living alone right now … trying
to get eyedrops in their own eyes. And missing with the dropper.
Cataract surgeons, like DR. Khan, are professional. They know
however that the surgery is only part of the game.
“Alan, lean back…way back…look at the ceiling.”
ALAN
Note: SORRY my stories have been delayed by Dr. Khan, Marjorie and
an eye dropper.