Tag Archives: glaucoma

the eye surgery follow-up

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My eye surgery last week was actually pretty uneventful, given how much I freaked out about it beforehand. I couldn’t find my Klonopin (my medicine cabinet is hopelessly disorganized), so Brittany very generously offered up two of her Ativan instead. Dave and I left while Catie was taking a nap, and my sister Tracy (who’d flown in the night before) and Brittany promised to keep Catie happy and entertained when she woke up.

I took one Ativan before we left the house, and since I was still shaky and panicky when we got the eye doctor’s office (and I found out that they do NOT give you drugs for this procedure), I asked for a cup of water so I could take the second one. They measured my eye pressure and put some drops in my eyes to make my pupils constrict (which was very weird), then sent me back to the waiting room to wait for the doctor. I sat with Dave, both of us playing with our iPhones – he was playing Scrabble, I was reading Twitter. Then I suddenly looked up and realized that heeeeey, I feel goooood. I was full-on stoned from the Ativan. I even whipped out my iPhone and took this picture of Dave and me.

all sedative'd up before my eye surgery

Flattering, no? Now you know what I look like when I’m stoned. (Um, not that I ever do that. Anymore.) (Also: how cute is Dave in that picture? He looks all, “yes yes, I’m tolerating my ridiculous goof of a wife quite well, thank you.”)

Anyway, the doctor finally showed up and brought me back. Honestly, the surgery wasn’t nearly as horrible as I was expecting. It was a little uncomfortable, but it wasn’t agonizing or anything. I can think of things (i.e., the dentist) that are far more painful.

After it was all done, we came home, just as Tracy and Brittany were about to take Catie shopping (an effort to keep her distracted from the fact that Mommy wasn’t around; they came back with at least half a dozen books and a stuffed elephant. Thanks, aunt Tracy!). I managed to sneak past them so Catie didn’t see me, and I went straight to bed. I slept for a couple of hours, and woke up feeling great.

And really, I’ve had no problems since then. I have to use some prednisone eye drops four times a day for the next week to prevent swelling, but that’s about it. I have a follow-up appointment in a few weeks, and… yeah. That’s pretty much all there is to it. I know, you’d think it’d be more dramatic, right? Meh.

Up next: moving drama. Oy.

blogging as a means to not think about lasers in my freakin' eyeballs (which, FAIL)

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My eye surgery is this afternoon. It occurred to me while I was getting dressed this morning that it was probably not the best day to apply both eyeliner and (non-waterproof) mascara, but it was too late by the time I realized it. I guess I’ll just look like a raccoon later when my eyes water it off.

And I forgot to say it earlier, but thank you to all of you who left kind words when I freaked out about the surgery last week. But I need to clarify, the surgery I’m having is not lasik. I’m still going to need my glasses after this is over. Basically what they’re doing is using a laser to poke a few holes in my iris (shudder), which will ensure that the fluid in my eyes can circulate. (If the fluid can’t continuously circulate, the optic nerve will die, hence the blindness.) You can read all about it here if you like – I started to read it and freaked out and had to close the window. But I think it’s relatively accurate.

Btw, I have no idea if they’re planning to drug me for this procedure or not. I forgot to ask beforehand. So I’m bringing my Klonopin with me, and if they don’t offer me any drugs, I’ll just go ahead and knock myself out, thank you very much.

And I have to say, it’s been a lot of fun having Brittany here this week. She has a great camera (that I totally want to steal) and we got some fantastic pictures of Catie, which I’m going to try to upload soon. As an added bonus, my sister flew in for the weekend last night, so I’ll have both Tracy and Brittany here to take care of Catie while I’m out of commission (and Dave will be, presumably, taking care of his drugged-up wife). Catie is in Happy Toddler Overload, she doesn’t know what to do with all the attention. So no worries on that end.

Oh, one random note: yesterday Catie was in a bad mood and I asked her if she wanted to watch a movie. She walked over to the shelf where all of her DVDs are stored, and pulled out “E.T.” (which I bought before she was born, but the cellophane was still on it because I rarely feel the need to reduce myself to a sobbing mess). I wasn’t sure if it would be too scary for her, so I skipped the beginning and started it at the point where Elliott and E.T. meet for the first time. She loved it. She walked over to the TV to pat Elliott and reassure him that he shouldn’t be scared, because E.T. was his friend. I can’t really say how great it is to see your kids enjoying movies that you loved when you were little, but yeah, it was fantastic.

are they at least ill-tempered sea bass?

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A couple of months ago I went to the eye doctor and got glasses. While I was there, my doctor told me that she thought I might be showing early signs of glaucoma, so she had me come back and do a really gross eye test that involved a little plastic doohickey touching the surface of my eyeball. (And yes, that really is just as squicky and gross as it sounds.) However, she couldn’t tell much from the test, so she sent me to a glaucoma specialist. Great.

That appointment was a couple of weeks ago, and I can’t believe I didn’t blog about it, but I think I was in some sort of “lalalala-I-can’t-hear-you-lalala!!!” denial mode about it. It turns out that yes, I actually am showing early signs of glaucoma (thanks for the crappy eye genes, Dad!) and I need to have laser surgery on my eyes to make sure that I don’t suddenly go COMPLETELY EFFING BLIND. Um, yay?

The doctor said he could do my eye surgery on August 4th, then said, “You aren’t traveling anywhere between now and then, are you?” I said actually, yes, I’m going to Chicago at the end of July (I didn’t tell him about BlogHer, I was worried he might look at me funny), and he said, “Oh no, that’s no good. Ok, in that case, we have to squeeze you in sooner.” Apparently the air pressure changes in an airplane could cause the fluid pressure in my eyes to change and again with the blindness and OMG are you kidding me with this?

So, I’m having laser eye surgery next Friday, July 10th. At 4 p.m., which sucks because it’s not a daycare day, and it’s right at the end of Catie’s naptime, and Dave has to be there at the eye doctor’s because I won’t be able to drive myself home afterward and blaaaaah I so do not want to deal with this. Also, I have no idea how I’m going to be feeling after the surgery, but we’ve had two invitations for fun stuff that weekend, and I’ve had to turn them down just because I’m worried that I’m going to be feeling weird, or at the very least I’m still going to be wearing those giant protective goggle sunglasses from the eye doctor’s.

Yeah. Laser eye surgery. Yippee. But let me tell you, if I walk into that doctor’s office and see a shark tank (sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!), I am SO out of there.