I'm not talking race, or snow, or anything other than that two eyes in the same head can see totally different things at the same time. Or in my case, one of them can fail to see. That's how I came out of cataract surgery yesterday, once the eye cup came off.
It was a total surprise. The first eye after its surgery years ago went from totally blind to seeing clearly but with a red glow for a few hours. The second eye went from a little weird, the reason for the procedure, to seeing totally white. I blame blinking at the wrong time. I do blink a lot, and asking me to hold my eyes wide open for drops is a fools errand. I'll blink 4 times before you can get the bottle aimed over the eye, and another time just as the drop falls, with another just as the second drop falls as they try to make up for missing the first time. My face gets wildly decorated in red, yellow, white... whatever color the drops are when they miss. The nurses are understandably reluctant to use their fingers to hold the two lids apart, or at least most of them are. So when the doc finally came over to see how dilated my right eye was before surgery, he frowned and ordered more drops. It was important, particularly with both pseudoexfoliation and and astigmatism to deal with.
So I got more drops. 36 hours later they're still working. I have one huge pupil starring at the world. It doesn't help, much as some might think bigger is better. It lets in too much light, hence the all white view, just like an overexposed photo. It doesn't focus well either. On top of that, the eye is absolutely positive there is some kind of huge (well, relatively) rock under that eyelid that no amount of saline drops will flush away. Blink-ow. blink-ow. blink-ow. Look in a different direction-ow. Close eyes-ow.
Don't think I dislike eye drops. They're mostly keeping me sane right now. Saline ones have a teensy bit of soothing power. Another set stings a bit, but it helps prevent infection, among other things, so no fudging on the doses. But it's just not that simple.
The set of saline (aka very white, and that's seeing them with the good eye, so they really are still white) drops come in a single dose plastic dropper. After you twist off a wide flap at the top, you upend the tube, try to point it in your eye by the time it's totally upside down vertically, and squeeze the somewhat stiff plastic bubble holding the saline. I have no idea what "engineer" designed these things. It's the clumsiest contraption I've ever used. I'm still getting it into position by the time it's half empty, and when I'm really lucky and it's finally aimed over my eye either I blink just that split second or there's so little left that the hard squeeze it requires pushed it back over some other part of my face. Even running down my face those drops are white white. Should you by some miracle of luck and dexterity get the needed drop or two actually in your eye and have some left over, there is no way to reseal the thing. The winged thingy you twisted off does not go back on. Toss it. all of it.
I asked Steve to help me last night. After I described the process - or lack thereof - to him, we agreed it would work best if I lay down across near the end of the bed with him having room to sit next to me at the very edge. I'd hold my eyelids apart with my fingers and he'd aim and squeeze the tube thingy. One miss. A second miss. He started getting nervous he'd actually poke me in the eye with the end of the tube, so we figured out that I'd make a little wall around my eye with my hand while holding the lids apart, and he'd bring his hand to touch that just as he squirted.
We got one drop in!
Today I looked in my medicine cabinet and pulled out a still new bottle of good standard saline drops, easy to squeeze, reclosable, and manageable by one person with no problems if "too much" went in. Of course, those drops go in a few minutes before the medical ones, so they wouldn't dilute that. They aren't quite as white as the fancy ones, but who cares. My eye was still seeing white enough all over for both bottles of drops, even though the medical ones are yellow. I can always tell when I actually hit the eye with those since they burn for about a minute. Those are the 3x a day, for 3 weeks drops. Wheeee.
While waiting this morning for the medical drops to go in, I went online for a few minutes to send an email. I could see the keys. They're big and one eye is enough for the job. But the email font is small and one eye in this case is NOT enough to catch the three dozen typos which usually sneak into anything I type while my fingers aren't looking. I apologized for the lack of proofing and hoped it was mostly understandable. I did get a reply this afternoon that seemed to indicate the gist was understood.
Maybe tomorrow I'll go back and read what I really wrote.
This morning I drove myself for my next-day check. It's about a gallon of gas each way, freeway morning rush hour, no decent view of the right lane much of the time. I waited for the really large gaps (all both of them) to change lanes. But I'd asked the doc and he assured me that the anesthesia would be out of my system from the surgery and I'd be OK. I was still seeing white when I walked in. A very quick look in the eye brought some effective eyedrops to start shrinking the iris, and colors returned a bit. Tonight, fyi, it's still blurry and slightly cloudy, but much better. The mirror claims the drops did half their job, a huge improvement. If this is well proofed, we'll all know it's better.
Of course they did a vision test at the eye doc's. The first screen seemed to show a faint shadow that resolved into two blobs, somewhat squarish. I knew they were squares because they'd been up on the screen for 5 minutes and my good eye had identified them... and two others totally invisible to my "fixed" eye. Just to test the system, I think, they had me read their chart after the first go round with various letters for the first eye again for the good eye. Yes, huge difference. I could decipher a couple of the largest letters with my still white eye, everything down to bitty stuff with the old eye.
They want me back in a week. And yes, they did kind of use an extra lot of the stuff to expand my irises for the surgery and it was still working. It will wear off. That thing embedded in the back of my upper eyelid? It's where they did some kind of incision in the eye, not the lid, to deal with the astigmatism. I can check it out when my eye gets better, doing my left-eye, right-eye dance. It hasn't exactly been explained more than that. It's probably enough information anyway. The best part is it will heal and quit driving me nuts.
Or at least not quite as much nuts as now.
I'll let you decide how much that is.
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