My even more recent emergency surgery

Well, I'm finally out of the hospital and have been home for a few days now after a having emergency surgery to repair my newly-installed ocular implant.

To recap from my old blog post from a couple of weeks ago, I had my left eye removed at the beginning of the month, and in its place was an implant to try to make an artificial eye look as real as possible. The surgery wasn't bad, I was home just after one day, and I thought all was well on the road to recovery.

During the week after the first surgery, every day my dad helped me remove the eye patch and help clean the eye socket and put in some of the antibiotic ointment around the area to promote healing. I only had to keep this up for about a week, until my doctor's appointment on Tuesday, October 10. However, things started to get really interesting on Monday morning when I woke up. Although the area around my eye never really felt all that great, I felt something totally different than I had in the previous days. It was almost like a sharp, tingling discomfort that just felt really gross and awkward. I told my dad, and he decided to remove the eye patch and see what was going on.

He put on his latex gloves and started to remove the tape around the patch very slowly. As he pulled away the gauze, my eyelid was exposed and closed (when there's no eye in the socket, the eyelid cannot stay open, so it will be shut until I get the acrylic eye made, or a temporary outer layer to help support the eyelid). He noted that it looked a little swollen, and when he raised my eyelid as he had done several times before, something happened that we totally weren't expecting. I felt something slide out of the eye socket and dangle on my cheek. I couldn't see what it was, but knew it couldn't be good when my dad's face turned immediately scared, and said "holy fucking shit!" Blood started to ooze out of the eye, and I felt one of the sharpest pains I've ever experienced in my life.

It turns out that the thin membrane covered over the implant to protect it didn't stay in place, and 3 of the 4 muscles attached to the implant had detached themselves, and so the implant was dangling out of the eye socket with one tiny muscle strand.

I started to get very dizzy from the pain, so my dad immediately laid me on my back and "pushed" the implant back into my eye, put the patch on as good as he quickly could, and yelled to my mother to call the valet station to retrieve our car. He then went and got all of my medicine and supplies and put them in a Ziploc bag. My parents helped me get off the floor and walked me down the hall to the elevator. As we were approaching the lobby, some of the valet attendants and other employees helped carry my stuff and get me in the arriving car (we still are using the rental car, since mine was totaled and haven't looked for a new one yet).

We began the 25-minute journey up to the hospital, although I think we may have made it a little quicker than that. My dad said he drove much faster than he should have, and had his hazards on, so he was lucky he didn't get pulled over. Traffic wasn't bad, and the only time we had to slow down was going through the toll plaza. On the way to the hospital, my mother called my surgeon and told him what happened, and he said that he would come in to the hospital as soon as he could. We didn't call an ambulance or anything because we knew it would take longer for them to pick me up and then take me to the hospital. There's a public hospital down the road, but eww, I wouldn't go there unless I really had to.

Once at the hospital, some of the assistants put me in a wheelchair and luckily enough, they allowed my mom to stay behind and handle all the paperwork at triage, and immediately began to work on making me more comfortable until the surgeon arrived. I undressed and got into one of those skimpy hospital gowns, and a nurse was there to put an IV in my arm. He gave me something to relax me and to help ease the pain, and damn it knocked me out before I knew what was happening to me.

I don't know how long it was between when I got to the hospital and when my doctor finally arrived, but I was just waking up and hearing him talking to my parents. He had taken off the bandage and was examining what happened, and was afraid that my body was rejecting the implant. He wasn't sure why the membrane (to hold the implant in) broke/detached, but he thinks it was because I didn't have the conformer (a clear acrylic placeholder for the outer prosthetic). He originally didn't put one in because he felt that it would put too much pressure on the implant and stunt its healing process due to all the swelling I had. He also was afraid that my body was just rejecting the implant all together, and would have to go with one of the old-school glass eyes that people used until the implants were developed. The old eyes were completely stationary and didn't move with your other eye, whereas the new implants should have a fairly good range of movement.

He felt that his original diagnosis was correct, and even though he didn't like all the swelling he was seeing, he would put in the acrylic conformer and closely monitor me to make sure it doesn't pop out. A short while later, the operating room was ready, and I was given a nice dosage of anesthesia in my IV, and again I was out in just a couple of minutes.

My next memory was disturbingly familiar: waking up in a dark recovery room with my parents and girlfriend staring over my face. Again, I didn't have my glasses and couldn't really make out anything, but it was great to see that they were there with me again. I was also pleased to see that they had given me enough anesthesia so that I didn't wake up until after they had taken out the breathing tube (during my last surgery, I woke up early while the tube was still in, and they had to tie my arm down to prevent me from tugging on it).

I drifted out of consciousness again, and woke up later that afternoon in a hospital room. I don't remember much, but I do remember being very, very thirsty. My girlfriend put the straw to my mouth, and I took a couple of swigs, and I immediately had this very unsettling feeling in my stomach. Within seconds, I spewed out chunks of my breakfast (and probably the previous night's dinner) all over the hospital bed and the floor. I now know why they tell you not to eat anything before surgery. We pushed the call button on the remote control, and a nurse came in and helped get me cleaned up and put new sheets on the bed. I got a comfy new paper gown along with a new pair of those socks with rubber on the bottom of them.

I tried drinking some water about an hour later, and I immediately got that feeling in my stomach and threw up the remaining contents of my stomach. Luckily I had a bucket to throw up in, so I didn't make a mess all over myself. The on-call doctor didn't seem to be too concerned at the time, because I was being given fluids through the IV. He said to give it the night and see how the next day goes. I didn't care if I was drinking anything or not, because I was so strung out on the pain medicine I didn't really know or care what was going on.

The following morning (Tuesday), I tried to drink some more fluids and again I threw it up. I knew I didn't feel like eating any breakfast, but tried a Jello square anyways. It came back up shortly after, too. The doctor on call was starting to get concerned a little, noting that this behavior was highly irregular. My family and I were all like, "no shit." Anyways, I continued to rest in bed until later that morning my eye doctor came in to check on me to see how I was feeling and to see how the implant is holding up. This time with the plastic eye placeholder in, he noted that things were going well, and that I was even able to open up my eyelid (something I hadn't been able to do before). He took out the conformer to examine the membrane surrounding the implant, and said things were looking good. He put the conformer back in and put the pressure patch back on the eye. He also said that in terms of the eye, I would be ready to go home, but that I should stay a little longer until I can start taking in fluids by myself without throwing them back up.

Later that afternoon, I still wasn't able to keep any solids or liquids down, but I started to pee a lot. Every 20 or 30 minutes, I had the huge urge to drain my bladder, and was urinating much more than what was going into my body through the IV. The doctors were becoming increasingly concerned that if I couldn't start drinking soon that I may become severely dehydrated. They also told me I wasn't going to be going home that night.

I was still drugged up on pain medicine, and the doctors thought that perhaps I was having a negative reaction to the medication. They decided to cut back on it, even though I would feel a little more discomfort to see if I had any improvement. I didn't, and in fact I started to feel worse. Later that evening, I started feeling really sick on my stomach and nauseated. My stomach was completely empty, so my attempts of throwing up ended in painful dry heaves that came every 45 minutes or so. I was given some medicine for nausea, and something to help me relax, and aside from getting up to pee once an hour, I had a relatively good night, until early Wednesday morning.

Early in the Wednesday AM I woke up extremely cold and my body completely numb below my chest. My fingers were also tingling with the 'needles' you get when your arm or leg goes to sleep. My girlfriend who stayed the night with me called the nurse when I woke up. She came in to see what was wrong and immediately asked if I had to pee. I didn't, but she told me to try, and the pee was an orange color. She said that I may have a kidney infection or something along those lines, which would explain why I peed so much throughout the evening and night. They gave me a shot and by lunchtime my body started to feel better, and I warmed up a bit. I don't know what they gave me, but I really started feeling better! My eye doctor also came in, examined my eye, and said things were looking good in that area, too! They decided to keep me one more night to see how my condition is.

Later that afternoon, I continued to try to take in some fluids, and over time I was able to drink a couple of ounces. I even was able to keep down a single, wonderful, lime Jello square.

That evening, my dad and Elena went back to my apartment, and my mom decided to stay with me for the night. I still couldn't see anything because my glasses wouldn't fit over the eyepatch, but damn it was good to be feeling better.

The following morning, the on-call doctor came in to check on me, and was happy to see that everything was going well. The eye doctor came in an hour later, changed my bandages, and cleared me for discharge from the hospital.

My dad showed up at the hospital to help get me home, and my parents accompanied me alongside my wheelchair and the nurse pushing me to the pick-up area. My dad said he was going to go get the car, but I remembered what happened last week when we got in a bad wreck. I suggested a taxi, so my dad whistled for a cab and when it came near, the license plates said Fresh and it had dice in the mirror. If anything, I could say that this cab was rare, but I was like 'naah forget it. Yo holmes, to Bel-Air."


















































Just kidding

The trip home on Thursday morning was uneventful, and the valet guys were kind enough to help us get all of my stuff into the condo. I was so weak from not eating anything for 4 days so I crawled into bed and slept. The pain medicine also helped keep me nice and sleepy, so no complaints there.

Over the next couple of days, I started to get more energy, and was eating and drinking more every day. By Saturday, except for this huge pressure patch on my eye, I felt pretty normal. I still look like I got beat up by a bunch of thugs, so I don't like looking at myself in the mirror yet I did have a little problem with anxiety, but that's due to me not taking my medication properly while in the hospital. I don't know why they didn't want me to take Prozac while hooked up to IVs and on pain medication. Maybe there were some possible adverse reactions...

Once I got my appetite back, I've been having these really really strange cravings. I had my mom fix me a tuna and peanut butter sandwich, and at the time, was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had in my life. My tartar sauce craving came back, and I ate like a whole bottle of the stuff with a few Fillet O' Fish sandwiches from McDonald's. Yesterday I wanted some pizza rolls, but also something sweet, so I dipped them in chocolate syrup. Heaven. Today I Beenie Weenies mixed with mayonnaise and honey mustard. My mom almost threw up over that combo, but damn it was so good. I'll probably take some serious craps here in the next day or two, given that all this medicine hasn't made me constipated as hell.

I'm also hoping that my sex drive will pick up soon. I'm sure it's the medication and the recovery, but I haven't had any sexual thoughts or desires since my first surgery on 10/02. I can't even get a boner

As for work, I'm still taking time off, although I'm going to be swamped when I eventually get back. My supervisor came by again yesterday to see how I was doing, and told me to take as much time as I needed. I was scheduled to give some more interviews late next week, but he said he would find someone else to take my place. I think the real reason he came by was to resume his argument with my father, whose political views are somewhat... hypocritical. He hates GWB with a passion, but will always praise him because he's saved him a lot of money over the past few years. But anyways, he and my boss got in a heated discussion last week, and got into one again yesterday. They both enjoyed it, though, and sat on the balcony smoking cigars and drinking whiskey for over an hour.

As for what's coming up in the next week or two, I will be visiting my eye doctor regularly to make sure everything is still going well, and have scheduled an appointment during the first week of December with an ocularist who is going to take a mold of my eye socket and begin the procedure of fabricating the outer part of the prosthetic eye. I also hope that my sleep schedule will return to normal as I start getting off of the pain medication. I've been sleeping a lot during the day, and so I'm waking up at 3 and 4 in the morning and can't go back to sleep.

This weekend, we're going to start looking at buying a car to replace the one that got totaled a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea what I'm in the market for, but it will be good just to look around and see what's out there. My parents also mentioned going home sometime. I'm being selfish in saying that I hope they will stay for at least a few more weeks. There's no possible way I could have gone through all this by myself (or even with just my girlfriend), and I am eternally grateful for anything and everything they have done for me.