{"id":26858,"date":"2025-01-07T14:30:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T19:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=26858"},"modified":"2025-01-07T14:31:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T19:31:51","slug":"episode-1201-cataract-surgery-nervous-who-would-not-be-nervous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=26858","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 1,201: CATARACT SURGERY…NERVOUS ? WHO WOULD NOT BE NERVOUS?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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EPISODE  1,201:   CATARACT SURGERY…NERVOUS ?  WHO WOULD NOT BE NERVOUS?<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
january 7, 2025<\/div>\n

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\"close-up<\/div>\n

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\"nurse<\/div>\n

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\u201cAlan, your surgeon, Dr. Khan, is on the phone!\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHello\u2026what a surprise\u2026a phone call Sunday evening,\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHow are you?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cFine\u2026no need for glasses any more.<\/div>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cIf you need an assistant surgeon, give me a call,  I was able to watch<\/div>\n
what you did to my right eye as both eyes were open.\u201d<\/div>\n

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I was joking, of course.  My comment was partly true though. I was conscious<\/div>\n
and watching\u2026or it seemed so.  Dr. Khan had precision tools to make a slight<\/div>\n
incision in my eyeball then extricate my lens and replace it with a new lens.<\/div>\n
That sounds so simple.<\/div>\n

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I was scared from the moment a nurse slid me onto a wheeled stretcher to<\/div>\n
the moment she wheeled me down a long hallway at Queensway Hospital<\/div>\n
to the operating room.  Just the thought of cutting my eyeball made me<\/div>\n
feel wobbly.<\/div>\n

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The whole operation was done in a few minutes then I was wheeled into<\/div>\n
a recovery room and offered apple juice.  \u201cCan I have a second<\/div>\n
apple juice\u201d?  \u201cSure\u2026you will be going home shortly.\u201d<\/div>\n

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That is my story in a nutshell.  Catatact surgery has been perfected.<\/div>\n
Wish I had not read so much about it.  I belong to the \u2018what can go<\/div>\n
wrong, will go wrong\u2019 school of thought.<\/div>\n
Noting went wrong.<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe eyedrops are the biggest problem, Alan,” said friend John Myers.<\/div>\n
And he is correct. Three kinds of eyedrops have to be dropped into<\/div>\n
the eye before and after surgery.  That is not easy to do.<\/div>\n
I am lucky.  Marjorie does the eye dropping and she does this<\/div>\n
four times a day with a three minute pause between drops each session.<\/div>\n

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\u201cOpen your eye\u2026here comes a drop.\u201d<\/div>\n

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WHAT IF I DID NOT HAVE MARJORIE?  <\/div>\n

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IT is difficult to do eyedrops into your own eye.   But that is what<\/div>\n
a great number of patients face.  Living alone they must be their<\/div>\n
own nurse.   Every time Marjorie says \u201cHold still !\u201d I cringe and<\/div>\n
feel sorry for myself.  What a fool I am! Imagine being alone.<\/div>\n

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Well I bet there are a lot of people living alone right now \u2026 trying<\/div>\n
to get eyedrops in their own eyes.  And missing with the dropper.<\/div>\n

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Cataract surgeons, like DR. Khan, are professional.  They know<\/div>\n
however that the surgery is only part of the game.   <\/div>\n

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\u201cAlan, lean back\u2026way back\u2026look at the ceiling.\u201d<\/div>\n

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ALAN<\/div>\n

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Note:  SORRY my stories have been delayed by Dr. Khan, Marjorie and<\/div>\n
an eye dropper.<\/div>\n

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EPISODE  1,201:   CATARACT SURGERY…NERVOUS ?  WHO WOULD NOT BE NERVOUS? alan skeoch january 7, 2025 \u201cAlan, your surgeon, Dr. Khan, is on the phone!\u201d \u201cHello\u2026what a surprise\u2026a phone call Sunday evening,\u201d \u201cHow are you?\u201d \u201cFine\u2026no need for glasses any more. \u201cThat\u2019s fine.\u201d \u201cIf you need an assistant surgeon, give me a call,  I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}