The cataract surgery yesterday was a complete success! I went for a follow-up with the doctor this morning and I now have 20/20 vision in both eyes. I will probably just need some reading glasses now. I have needed glasses to see at a distance since I was 18 yrs old. It will be so nice to be able to drive with just a pair of non-subscription sun glasses.
As usual, John is taking excellent care of me. He cooked dinner last night and then packed more boxes. Today he spent the day boxing up more stuff while I kept track of the inventory. I swear stuff must be multiplying in the closets and cabinets when we're not looking. I not supposed to lift anything more than 30 lbs for another week, so all the heavy lifting has been left up to John. Maybe I'll get lucky and he will have everything packed before I go back for the final check-up with the eye doc.
Yesterday, we went ahead and booked our airline tickets on Continental for July 12th. Tomorrow we are off to the vet to get the APHIS7001 health certificate for Randy, our dog. The document has to state he is healthy and he has had all the required vaccinations. Once the vet signs the document, we have to send it to Austin to have the certificate authenticated by the State.
Friends are planning a farewell party for us on July 9th and then we are off the Costa Rica 3 days later.
Read the whole story...
Showing posts with label Cataract Surgery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cataract Surgery. Show all posts
23 June 2011
09 June 2011
Countdown to Retirement: 6 Days to go and I just found out I'm NOT going blind!
Back in December, 2007, I had cataract surgery in my right eye and the difference was amazing. I actually had 20/25 vision and required no correction in the right eye. Three years have flown by and in the past 6 months I've starting to think I was going to be legally blind before too much longer. The vision in my right eye has become very blurry and my left eye sees double images. It has gotten so bad I won't drive at night, nor will I drive in an unfamiliar area regardless of the time of day.
Now for the good news. It took 6 week for me to get an appointment to see my ophthalmologist. I finally got to see him yesterday. They ran a battery of test and discovered I'm one of the 30-40% of post cataract surgery patients that develope a cloudy posterior capsule and it makes it look like I'm trying to see through a piece of wax paper. As far as the left eye is concerned, the doctor wanted to know if I'd been using Miracle Grow since I now have a fully developed cataract in that eye.
Tomorrow, I'm going in for a capsulotomy procedure to restore the vision in the right eye. It's about a 10 minute office procedure and the results are immediate. Then, in two week, he'll remove the cataract in the left eye. It sure would be wonderful to have my vision restored to that of a teenager without glasses. Glad we can get this fixed, just in time for our move to Costa Rica.
Read the whole story...
Now for the good news. It took 6 week for me to get an appointment to see my ophthalmologist. I finally got to see him yesterday. They ran a battery of test and discovered I'm one of the 30-40% of post cataract surgery patients that develope a cloudy posterior capsule and it makes it look like I'm trying to see through a piece of wax paper. As far as the left eye is concerned, the doctor wanted to know if I'd been using Miracle Grow since I now have a fully developed cataract in that eye.
Tomorrow, I'm going in for a capsulotomy procedure to restore the vision in the right eye. It's about a 10 minute office procedure and the results are immediate. Then, in two week, he'll remove the cataract in the left eye. It sure would be wonderful to have my vision restored to that of a teenager without glasses. Glad we can get this fixed, just in time for our move to Costa Rica.
Read the whole story...
14 December 2007
Seeing is Believing
Having an eye go bad is pretty scary business. It's even worse when you get a cataract in one eye and it progresses very quickly.
Pat had known that she had a minor cataract problem. Then in early '07 we both noticed that her vision was getting really bad. Our regular optometrist told her that the slight catarct had rapidly clouded to a major cataract in less than a year (uncommon.) Together, we went to an appointment with an eye specialist and were dismayed to be shown that her vision had degenerated to 20:60, in her right eye, WITH glasses. Without glasses, she couldn't see anything, functionally.
The suggestion was to replace the cataract-damaged eye lens with a man-made plastic lens. They now do this with orthoscopic micro-surgery and it sounded like a simple procedure.
As of today, there are several different classes of lenses available for implantation and we had a difficult decision to make. The old-time type of lenses are fairly rigid, fixed focus critters. That means that you get one range of vision in focus: usually long distance is in focus; medium distance is a little fuzzy; and, close up (reading) is just a mess. The up-side is that there have been thousands and thousands of them implanted with a very low problem rate.
An alternate is a newer design that is soft/flexible so that the eye muscles can warp the lens and give the patient acceptable distance, mid-range and close-up vision. Even though they don't always give the patient perfect vision at any of the distance ranges, many people throw away their glasses completely if both eyes receive the soft implants.
Since Pat only needed a single lens replaced, that meant that she would positively still have to wear glasses (for the untreated eye).
So: more proven design; single eye repair only; probability that the old design will be around for years and years (in case a repair/replacement is required in the distant future) -- we selected the older design.
I was expecting quite a big deal for the ultrasonic disintigration of the old lens, removal of the many pieces, insertion of the new lens, positioning, and repair of the incision. They told us that the entire procedure would take 3 hours, including recovery.
So, I'm thinking, "This will take less than an hour in the operating room."
Wrong.
While Pat was being prepared for the operation, the nurse said, "Yes, the Doctor will take about 10 minutes to complete the procedure."
Ten minutes!?! Incredible.
And that's how it went. From when they rolled her toward the operating room until the doctor came out to tell me the procedure went perfectly, only about 20 minutes ticked away. (There was some time eaten up for the anesthetic to kick in.)
There was a bit of angst for both of us as we worried what the results would be. Pat had 3 kinds of eye drops to endure, every 4 hours and she said that it felt like there was a foreign object caught under her eyelid.
The next day, we were at the doctor's office for a post-operative check up. The nurse flashed an eye chart up on the wall and asked Pat to read the smallest line possible. She hesitated a second and then ripped through the little bitty letters at the bottom of the page. 20:20 vision!
Three hours out of our lives and Pat goes from barely being able to see with glasses to perfect vision without glasses. Wow.
Read the whole story...
Pat had known that she had a minor cataract problem. Then in early '07 we both noticed that her vision was getting really bad. Our regular optometrist told her that the slight catarct had rapidly clouded to a major cataract in less than a year (uncommon.) Together, we went to an appointment with an eye specialist and were dismayed to be shown that her vision had degenerated to 20:60, in her right eye, WITH glasses. Without glasses, she couldn't see anything, functionally.
The suggestion was to replace the cataract-damaged eye lens with a man-made plastic lens. They now do this with orthoscopic micro-surgery and it sounded like a simple procedure.
As of today, there are several different classes of lenses available for implantation and we had a difficult decision to make. The old-time type of lenses are fairly rigid, fixed focus critters. That means that you get one range of vision in focus: usually long distance is in focus; medium distance is a little fuzzy; and, close up (reading) is just a mess. The up-side is that there have been thousands and thousands of them implanted with a very low problem rate.
An alternate is a newer design that is soft/flexible so that the eye muscles can warp the lens and give the patient acceptable distance, mid-range and close-up vision. Even though they don't always give the patient perfect vision at any of the distance ranges, many people throw away their glasses completely if both eyes receive the soft implants.
Since Pat only needed a single lens replaced, that meant that she would positively still have to wear glasses (for the untreated eye).
So: more proven design; single eye repair only; probability that the old design will be around for years and years (in case a repair/replacement is required in the distant future) -- we selected the older design.
I was expecting quite a big deal for the ultrasonic disintigration of the old lens, removal of the many pieces, insertion of the new lens, positioning, and repair of the incision. They told us that the entire procedure would take 3 hours, including recovery.
So, I'm thinking, "This will take less than an hour in the operating room."
Wrong.
While Pat was being prepared for the operation, the nurse said, "Yes, the Doctor will take about 10 minutes to complete the procedure."
Ten minutes!?! Incredible.
And that's how it went. From when they rolled her toward the operating room until the doctor came out to tell me the procedure went perfectly, only about 20 minutes ticked away. (There was some time eaten up for the anesthetic to kick in.)
There was a bit of angst for both of us as we worried what the results would be. Pat had 3 kinds of eye drops to endure, every 4 hours and she said that it felt like there was a foreign object caught under her eyelid.
The next day, we were at the doctor's office for a post-operative check up. The nurse flashed an eye chart up on the wall and asked Pat to read the smallest line possible. She hesitated a second and then ripped through the little bitty letters at the bottom of the page. 20:20 vision!
Three hours out of our lives and Pat goes from barely being able to see with glasses to perfect vision without glasses. Wow.
Read the whole story...
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