My surgery among other things

The reality of my eye-removal surgery set in when my parents flew in from San Francisco to take care of me. When I first greeted my parents at the airport, I could tell they were already "saddened" in their own ways, for they knew this wasn't going to be a pleasure visit. My mom was crying and my dad was very quiet, and we had a very emotional drive back to the condo. My girlfriend, Elena, is also very emotional, and started crying when she saw my mother crying. I had made some reservations at this really nice restaurant, so we got dressed in our formal-wear and decided to walk to the establishment rather than drive.

I think my mom took some sort of upper, because her mood changed dramatically from the time we picked her up at the airport to when we were at dinner. That's a good thing. Dinner was great, and my mom got into one of her "shopping" moods to drown away any problems she is having. She decided that she wasn't happy with the appearance of my condo's kitchen and living room, and she wanted to do a partial renovation of it.

The next day, I went in to work, and left early because my mom called and wanted me to accompany her and her shopping assistant as she shopped for new kitchen appliances. She wanted to get a new countertop, refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, stove, oven, and possibly new flooring for the kitchen and foyer hallway. I dreaded it, but knew she would appreciate me being there, so we went shopping all over Atlanta to find the perfect appliances. She sent my dad out to buy a new TV, but I wasn't allowed to go with him, probably because she knew I would have more fun with him (he was going to play some golf, too)

My mom's emotions were a problem on Saturday, too, when we went to visit some of their friends in Duluth, GA for dinner. She ended up taking a tranquilizer when she got home so that she would fall asleep.

Sunday, things were real quiet, relaxed, and I wasn't too concerned about what was going to happen the next day. I went for a run, and we just had a nice, quiet day at the condo. I wasn't supposed to eat any real heavy foods or drink a lot of fluids, so we just snacked on junk food all day. The cutoff time for any food or drink was at 6pm, although the doctor said if my throat got real dry that I could take a couple of sips of water. I ended up staying up pretty late online, and went to bed around 1am. I was told that I needed to remove any piercings, etc that I had before the surgery, so my Elena helped pry open and remove my nipple rings. I scored some last-minute pity sex before we fell asleep,

I had to be at the hospital at 7am, so we got up at 5:30, showered, dressed, and packed a little overnight bag for me. The drive to the hospital wasn't bad because we were heading outside of town. It was amazing how crowded the highways were at 6:15am. I'm glad I don't have to drive to work!

I got put into this little room where I had to strip down and put on only a thin gown and these little socks with rubber on the bottom so I don't slide around the floor and fall down. They had a little TV in the room, and I was hanging out there for about 20 minutes with my family and Elena, until a nurse came in to put an IV in my arm. I've heard horror stories about doctors removing the wrong eye, so I had Elena draw an arrow pointing to the bad eye and write 'BAD' with a sharpie marker on my forehead. The doctor came in and just laughed, and said that I didn't have anything to worry about. He said that it's procedure for two doctors to examine me and identify which eye was the bad one. A few minutes later, and a nurse came in and put something in my IV, and that's all I remember.

The next instant, or so it seemed, I was in a dark room with my arm tied down to my side. I had a tube down my throat, and couldn't talk or see. The nurse tried to calm me down and I drifted back into unconsciousness. I woke up again, this time with my arm untied, and the tube out of my throat, and was greeted by Elena and my parents all smiling at me. My face was numb, and I couldn't feel anything other than this huge pressure feeling on the left side of my face. The pain medicine must have been really strong, because I remember I was feeling great. My vision was super blurry because I didn't have my contact in, or my glasses on. I was told I couldn't have my glasses because they wouldn't fit over the thick bandages covering my left eye. The nurse later apologized for having my arm restrained, but apparently I had woken up early and tried to pull out the breathing tube, so they had to tie my arm down to keep me from hurting myself. I don't remember doing that!

A short time later, I was rolled into my hospital room for the night for observation, and still drowsy, I slept for a good while afterwards. The doctor came in a short while later to tell me how the surgery went. He said things went very well, and that he decided to go ahead and try the ocular implant. He also said that my eye was a real mess from all the infections and surgeries I previously had, but felt that the eye would be able to support the implant with what he thought to be a 60% probability of success. If not, he said it's no big deal to remove it, and can usually be done under local anesthesia. He left and said he would check up on me the following morning before I was discharged.

I vaguely remember my dad saying that he had to go run a few errands, and that he would be back later that evening. Elena and my mom stayed in the room with me the whole afternoon, and watched about 8 hours of Murder She Wrote on one of the hospital's special channels. I remember trying to watch a little bit of it, because I love that show, but unfortunately because I couldn't see clearly, Jessica Fletcher was nothing but a big yellow blur on the screen. I love the theme song. A few hours after being placed in my room, the general anesthesia wore off and I started having some discomfort where my eye used to be. I called in the nurse and she shot some stuff in my IV, and I was fast asleep again. My mom really was doing good, and I was proud of her for being so cheerful and upbeat throughout the whole day. My dad came back later that evening and brought Elena some dinner, and my parents soon went back to my condo downtown for the night. The hospital food service brought me some nasty hospital food. I don't remember what they brought me except for some green Jello and a carton of milk. I didn't feel like eating anything, but did eat a square or two of Jello to help my sore throat from the breathing tube.

Elena really pampered me in the hospital, and did everything for me. She helped me get out of bed to go to the bathroom, fluffed my pillows, adjusted the TV volume and bed level. She wouldn't even let me reach for my water mug. She kept calling me Dr. Pirate Joe and said that I was her little pirate (in her sexy Italian accent), but that the bandages should have been black instead of white. The nurse came back every couple of hours to check me out and give me some more medication to help me sleep throughout the night.

The following morning, my parents came back to the hospital at around 6:30 to 7am, and my doctor came in around 7:30. He gave me a checkup, removed my bandages and inspected the eye socket and the implant. He said things were looking good, and cleaned up some of the dried blood that was around the area. He got a little too close to a sensitive area and I jerked back real hard and almost fell off the bed. He apologized, and put on a smaller bandage so that my glasses would fit over them. My vision was still blurry even with my glasses on, and he said that it should improve in the next 24 hours. My dad got to take a peak into my eye socket and made the generic 'ewww, that'sawesome' comment. The doctor just smiled and said it will look like a real eye once the implant heals and I get the cosmetic cover for the implant fabricated. He also told me to keep the pressure patch on for another week, until my next appointment, and then I'll have a smaller patch to wear for a few more weeks. He gave me some supplies for me to change it once a day, and some ointment to squirt into the eye socket once a day.

I put on some fresh clothes, and took some pain medicine, and a nurse wheeled me out to my car at the hospital's main entrance. We got into a little traffic on the way home, because we were heading into town with the rest of the rush hour traffic.

Instead of heading straight to my place, we got off a couple of exits early so Elena could pick up a few things from her condo in Buckhead. We were driving down Peachtree Road, and crossing over Piedmont Road, and all of a sudden I see a car ramming into the right side of my car. I don't remember anything after that, except waking up strapped down in an ambulance a few minutes later not knowing where I was. My mom and Elena were in the ambulance with me, and I got real upset because I didn't know where my dad was. They assured me that he was fine, and he stayed behind with the car and to talk to the police. I also couldn't see anything real clearly, and panicked, not realizing that my glasses had fallen off and broken during the accident. They told me that a car full of Mexicans had ran through the red light and smashed into the side of my Jeep, knocking the car real bad. Elena was sitting right behind me, and she got some of the impact, too, and is afraid she had broken her arm. They think my car is totaled. The ambulance was apparently going to take us to the public hospital downtown, which is kinda nasty and rundown, so we persuaded them to take us back to the hospital we had just come from, so my doctor could check me out. Elena and I went different ways in the ER once we left triage, and my doctor came down to give me a look over and make sure nothing bad happened to my eye. Fortunately, nothing was wrong, and another emergency room doctor said I might have a mild concussion because of my early confusion and unconsciousness, but a day of rest would be the only treatment I would need.

Elena, however, did in fact break her arm and we waited for her to be x-rayed and have her arm set and casted by an orthopedist. It was a hairline fracture along one of the bones in her forearm, and wasn't very serious. She just has to stay in a small cast for 3-5 weeks and she'll be better than new.

While we were getting ready to check out of the hospital, my dad showed up and got a taxi van to take us back to my condo. This time, we took a slightly different route and got there with no problems. The valet attendants were really nice and helped us get into the condo with all of our stuff. My mom got me my spare pair of glasses, and apparently the wreck knocked my vision back to normal, for I could see quite clearly now with my glasses. My dad escorted Elena and me through the house and towards my bedroom, acting as a guide to show us what all he had done the day before when he left the hospital. I noticed a gigantic new TV out in the living room, a new flat top stove, oven, and microwave, and that he had moved the old plasma TV from the living room into the bedroom. He also had the old TiVo installed in the bedroom so we could watch all our programs while recuperating. I gave both of them a hug and thanked them, and then they put us both to bed. It was time for me to take another percocet, so I was fast asleep. I woke up a while later and tried to watch a little TV, but because I kept dozing off, I must have played through Prison Break 3 times before I finally got all of it in.

My dad came in and told me that the insurance people had called and declared my car as totaled. It was a 2004 Jeep Overland Grand Cherokee that was a graduation present when I finished my BS's at NCSU. He told me not to worry about it, and to think about what kind of car I might want to replace it with. For the time being, he was provided a rental car from the insurance company, so that there was no real rush. Plus, I doubt I'll feel like driving myself anytime soon. I leaned over to see how Elena was doing, and she was still asleep from the pain medication she had taken because her arm was hurting.

I felt like getting out of bed and was really hungry. I had a really strange craving for KC Masterpiece BBQ chips and Oreos. It makes a perfect sweet and salty/spicy combination if you eat a chip right after an Orero. They were simply Heaven. My mom then drew me a nice bath, and I soaked in the tub for over an hour until my fingers were all nice and wrinkly. I wanted to wash my face and hair (or what little bit of it I have), but was afraid to get my bandages wet, so I just used a soapy cloth. After my bath, I glanced at myself in the mirror for the first time. I looked AWFUL. I had intentionally avoided a mirror because I wasn't sure when I wanted to see my new face. My cheeks were all swollen, and my eyes were black. I look like I had gotten in a huge fight and gotten my ass handed to me. Even though I knew the swelling and bruising would go away, I started to cry, and got really, really sad. My heart then started to pound, and it got difficult to breathe. My anxiety had started to get to me, and I started to panic. I sat down on the edge of the tub and yelled for someone because I thought I was going to pass out and fall on the bathroom floor. Elena came in and got some of my anxiety and depression medicine that I hadn't taken in 3 days, and also a Xanax that my doctor had given me for anything immediate. I climbed into bed, counting numbers until my breathing returned to normal. I decided I would stay away from a mirror for a few more days. I was glad to see that Elena was feeling better. While I was in the bathroom taking a bath, she had gotten up to talk to my parents, and check her email. The pain wasn't that bad anymore she said.

The Xanax combined with some of my pain medicine knocked me out, and I slept through most of the night. I don't remember when Elena came to bed. I don't remember waking up any during the night except once to use the bathroom. I was still drowsy, so I didn't take anything else to help me sleep.

When I woke up on Wednesday, I noticed that even with my glasses that my vision was again pretty blurry. I saw some red blurs on my pillow case, and Elena said there was lots of blood on the pillow and lots of blood on my face. I called up the doctor and told him that it bled, and he said that this was actually normal for some reason, and for me not to worry. He just said to continue to use the healing ointment and the saline cleaning solution to wash off all that dried blood inside the eye socket. I had my dad help me take the bandage off, clean my eye, and re-bandage it. After the bandage was re-applied, it started to get really sore again, so I took some more pain medicine. Elena's arm was doing fine, and didn't take anything stronger than an over-the-counter Tylenol or Ibuprofen. The delivery men brought in a new refrigerator and dishwasher today, so the parents were working on getting that installed, cleaned, and transferring all the food from the old one to the new one. I lounged around on the couch for a few hours, playing with the new TV my dad had gotten. Other than being bigger, it really isn't any better than my old one, except that it will support the new 1080p HD format.

After lunch, my vision started to clear up, and I could read the small print on the TV, and eventually could read the text on my laptop screen to check my email. Being upright for so long started to make my eye have that painful throbbing feeling, so I decided to lay down on the bed, and I fell asleep for a few hours. I woke up later in the afternoon to more delivery guys bringing in new sofas and coffee tables. I loved my old leather sofa, for I had gotten it broken in just perfect. This one I'm going to have to start over again with

Around 7pm, I got a knock on the door, and it was my supervisor from work. He came by to see how I was doing, and to drop off one of those giant get-well-soon cards that was signed by hundreds of people, most of which I didn't know. It was a kind gesture, though, and it made me feel pretty good. He stayed for a while, and had a few drinks and snacks while he and my dad got into a fairly heated but light-hearted discussion over politics, the war, and whose financial dicks were bigger. (also, BigMan157, I gave him a copy of your resume and cover letter, and told him to take it to whomever he felt it would receive the most immediate attention. When I get into work sometime next week, I'll go make sure it was accepted by the HR folks).

After my boss left, I went to take another long bath. I didn't look in the mirror this time, and went to bed around 9pm. I took my medicine and a pain pill to make sure I have an uneventful night tonight.

And here I am, early Thursday morning, having gotten up at 4am not being able to go back to sleep. I've been playing on the Internet for a while, writing this, and doing some research about how my new eye will fit into the implant, and what the process is like. I also watched the Lost season premiere. I might try to see if I can get my parents to take me driving around today, to get some fresh air and to get outside of the house for a change.

Overall, I think things have gone pretty well, except for the nasty car wreck. Other than some general discomfort, the pain hasn't really been intolerable, or something I can't control. The doctor saying that the surgery was going to be a "walk in the park," wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the jaw surgery I had a few years earlier.