3 days so far with my new eye

On Tuesday afternoon, I had an appointment with my ocularist who was making me a prosthetic eye. In a previous blog post, I talked about my original consultation and the fitting procedures. It was pretty gross how they shoved all this gook into the eye socket. Luckily my appointment today wouldn't require that.

My appointment was at 1:30, and was once again greeted by the technician who worked on me a few weeks ago. She was the one who cut that awful joke about me winking at her (when my eye was out, and the eyelid couldn't stay up itself). I wasn't offended, but it was just really stupid and I had no idea my eyelid was shut. I mean, it's not like I could see through it ;)

Anyways, I was still wearing the eyepatch and the clear acrylic conformer that the doctor put in during the surgery to help keep the eye socket from shrinking and changing shape. It's kinda gross when they remove it. When clean, it is crystal clear, but after it has been in your eye for a couple of weeks, there's all sorts of yellowish-green, slimy, translucent, mucous that covers the entire conformer, with speckles of dried blood sprinkled throughout. I think one of the main reasons they want me to wear the eyepatch is so I don't gross people out when they look at me :beatup:

Anyways, the technician reclined me in the dental-like chair, and started to undress my eye. She started with the eyepatch, and then took this little suction cup and grabbed onto the conformer, and yanked it out of my eyesocket. It made this squishy noise, followed by a small pop that made me lol a little bit. As expected, it was covered in mucous, but thankfully there wasn't any blood on it.

She took her watering gun and vacuum suction tube and started cleaning out the eye socket just as the dental hygienist does when they rinse your mouth after they use that horrible-tasting gritty toothpaste. Also, just as she did last time, she got her suction tube a little too close to the back of my eye, and rammed it into one of the nerve endings, which obviously hasn't receded back into my brain yet. I yelled out my obligatory "HOLY FUCK THAT HURTS," and she just shrugged and moved on. She sat me up to let any water drain out of the socket that she didn't suck up.

She finally left, and I waited about 10 minutes before the ocularist came in the room. In his pocket he pulled out a little tiny ring jewelry box looking container, and opened it up and there was a shiny eye looking right back at me. He picked it up and let me hold it and examine it closely. The concave-shaped prosthetic will fit into my eyesocket over the permanently-installed implant that is tied to my eye muscles. This will let the prosthetic eye move around in unison with my good eye in the general range of motion.

While I was examining the eye, he rolled over this little cart with a rotary tool with a bunch of attachments. He said it was time to see how it fit. He lifted up my eyelid and slid it into place. Already it felt so much better than the acrylic conformer that had been in there for the past month. There were a couple of edges that felt like they were putting more pressure on the side of my eye than the others, so he pulled it out with a tiny suction cup, and used his Dremel tool to grind and polish away the pressure points.

We did this for about 5 minutes, and then he checked the range of motion for the eye and implant. He videotaped this so that I could later see how well it moved. I did some general left-right, up-down exercises, and then clockwise and counter-clockwise rotations. He said things looked great, and then showed me the video. For the most part, the artificial eye followed my real eye very well. It did not move, though, when I would look to the extreme left or right, up or down. He said that's typical.

As we were finishing up, he gave me a care bag with a cleaning solution, a few removal suction cups, and some lint-free medi-wipes to dry off the eye before I put it back into my head. I was instructed to remove it once every other day for the first month, to clean it, and to give me practice putting it back in, and then afterwards take it out once every 2 to 3 weeks. He said I could tell that it was time for a cleaning, when my eyelid doesn't slide very easily over the surface of the eye (due to calcium deposits, and other buildups).

Before he let me go, he took me over to a chair in front of a mirror, handed me a suction cup, and told me to practice taking the eye out and putting it back in. He said that it's difficult for the first few tries, just like putting in a contact lens. He also said that he had a few pointers, but they require the use of 2 hands, and thought it would be best to try it with the way I think would work because I know what methods I can and can't do.

Pulling the eye out is no problem, and cleaning it is a cinch. Putting it in was more tricky because of my damn eyelid wanting to stay shut. I tried sliding it in from the bottom, pushing the eyelid up with the eye, and popping it in from the bottom. That didn't work well, and I ended up having to use the nub to push the eyelid and skin around the eye up as far as I could, and finally was able to slide the eye in with a few crazy moves. He had me do it a couple of times, and each time I got better at it. He said that I would be a pro at it in a month, and that I should be able to return to my normal activities, including running and swimming (although to be sure to wear goggles when I swim in case the eye falls out).

As I stood up to leave, I took a good look in the mirror with my new eye in, and for the first time in 6 years, my face actually looked normal! My real left eye was blinded (cloudy pupil) and diseased (blue/brown sclera). But now with the prosthetic, it looked like I had two normal, healthy eyes. I actually started to get a little emotional, and shed a couple of tears (out of my right eye only, of course :beatup: ). The ocularist handed me a tissue, and said that my tears of joy were the only thanks he needed to know that he did a good job. He shook my hand, and said to come back in 2 months for a checkup, or whenever I felt I had a problem.

My girlfriend who was waiting in the lobby came to greet me at the checkout counter, and took a good look at me. She said I looked so good, and started crying herself. I had a few more tears of my own, and then started to laugh when she said she is going to miss my pirate eyepatch, and that I'll now be Dr. Joe instead of Pirate Joe. ARRRRRRGH

The past few days have been really good for me. With my glasses on, you really can't tell that I have a prosthetic eye. I was somewhat concerned that it might fall out when I sleep, but apparently the eye fits pretty snug, and hasn't fallen out in the 3 days that I've had it. I'll learn about how well it stays in when I start running again (for the first time in over 2 months). It's also good that I got the eye in before Christmas, so I won't weird out all of my girlfriend's family in Italy :beatup: