Last week John had cataract surgery on his right eye. It's been an interesting week. Post surgery, he has to put drops in his eye about every four hours, and I think there are three kinds -- put them in, hold your eye closed for several minutes, wait ten minutes, start the next set, go through the same process again. As of now, a week post surgery, it seems that he's going to be happy with it. He still can't see clearly, because he still needs glasses, but definitely not the coke bottles he'd been wearing, but he keeps looking at various paintings we have and saying how bright they are. Immediatly post surgery, he said he thought he'd like to have the other eye done right away, but apparently that was the drugs talking. The post surgical routine, and the fact that he can't see all that well for a month is taking a toll. He's being really upbeat about it, though.
John was scheduled to be at Kaiser in Rancho Cordova at 6:50. Before the surgery he had to put one set of drops in his eye three times and two other sets of drops in once. He said we had to leave at 6:15 to get there -- like there's a lot of traffic going out there in the middle of the damn night, but I went along since it was all so stressful for him anyway. You'll notice in the picture that when we arrived at Kaiser, it's still dark outside. Later I thought about the fact that as bad as I thought that was, there are people who have to be there at that hour every day because they work there. Yikes!!
Right after the surgery they send you out into the world with this giant eyepatch on, which you have to leave on for 24 hours, and then after it's off, you still have to wear it at night for a week. It's a big honking patch which totally precludes your putting your glasses on over it. So you're pretty much walking around blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. No wonder they tell you to take the elevator instead of the stairs. You're also not supposed to lift anything over 20 pounds for a week, though the doctor later told us not to lift anything that makes your face red, which in John's case would be significantly more than 20 pounds, I would guess.
Of course one of the things they don't tell you, is that you can't get a new refraction until a month after your surgery. So you have to go around for a month with one lense knocked out of your glasses, so I think the world is pretty mixed up for awhile. It's better now that he doesn't have the patch, at least he can put his glasses on. But he didn't want to try to pop the lens out of his sunglasses, so he's looking through a 20/200 correction with about a 20/60 eye, which also has much less astigmatism than it used to.
John was scheduled to be at Kaiser in Rancho Cordova at 6:50. Before the surgery he had to put one set of drops in his eye three times and two other sets of drops in once. He said we had to leave at 6:15 to get there -- like there's a lot of traffic going out there in the middle of the damn night, but I went along since it was all so stressful for him anyway. You'll notice in the picture that when we arrived at Kaiser, it's still dark outside. Later I thought about the fact that as bad as I thought that was, there are people who have to be there at that hour every day because they work there. Yikes!!
Right after the surgery they send you out into the world with this giant eyepatch on, which you have to leave on for 24 hours, and then after it's off, you still have to wear it at night for a week. It's a big honking patch which totally precludes your putting your glasses on over it. So you're pretty much walking around blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. No wonder they tell you to take the elevator instead of the stairs. You're also not supposed to lift anything over 20 pounds for a week, though the doctor later told us not to lift anything that makes your face red, which in John's case would be significantly more than 20 pounds, I would guess. 
Of course one of the things they don't tell you, is that you can't get a new refraction until a month after your surgery. So you have to go around for a month with one lense knocked out of your glasses, so I think the world is pretty mixed up for awhile. It's better now that he doesn't have the patch, at least he can put his glasses on. But he didn't want to try to pop the lens out of his sunglasses, so he's looking through a 20/200 correction with about a 20/60 eye, which also has much less astigmatism than it used to. 
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