Is it an amnesiac?

July 21, 2008 at 6:40 pm | Posted in Cataract Surgery, life's ups and downs, Toric Lens Implants | 140 Comments
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Welcome to the world of cataracts!  Yes, I have them in both eyes.  Well, I HAD them in both eyes.  Now I only have them in my left eye.  In my right eye I now have what is referred to as a toric lens which is an implant that replaces the old cataracted (is that a word?) lens and corrects for astigmatism.  This is a wonderful time to have cataracts because you can get toric lenses or a monofocal lens which allows you to have either distance or close-up vision or a I-forgot-what-it-is-called lens which has concentric circles and allows you distance and close-up vision without any further need for glasses or the just plain old lens which allows you to keep your trifocals and the only improvement is to see the world without interference from the cataracts.

The type of lens was a big decision for me to make because my insurance covered 100% (minus a $25 co-payment) for the just plain old lens.  The toric lens was recommended because of my astigmatism and I was told it will allow me distance vision but I will need a pair of Walmart or Dollar Tree reading glasses for reading and working on the computer.  For both eyes this is an additional cost of $4,157.00 which my insurance doesn’t cover.  The I-forgot-what-it-is-called (lets just refer to this as the IFWIIC) lens costs even more, which gives you an idea of why I didn’t go there, plus the fact that the IFWIIC doesn’t correct for astigmatism which would require that we go BACK into surgery and laser off portions of the IFWIIC to make this correction.

My friend, Linda, (not to be confused with my sister Linda from the previous post) had the just plain lens put in and is very pleased.  She can finally see the texture on her ceiling while lying in bed.  She gave me a gory and complete description of what the surgery entails including the fact that you are awake for the whole procedure.  “Didn’t you just freak out?”  I asked her. Her reply was, “Oh no, I don’t remember any of it.  They gave me an amnesiac so I wouldn’t remember it afterwards.  I’m just telling you what I read about it.”

I remember my mom had to have a heart procedure done which required her to be awake during the procedure and she was given an amnesiac so she wouldn’t remember the trauma of the event.  I don’t know about you but if something is going to be so terrible that they have to make me forget it, I’m not so sure I want to go through it in the first place.  However my other option was to continue to Mr. Magoo my way through life with ever diminishing eyesight.

So I did it.  The first thing that was done to me after checking to make sure I was who they thought I was was to get a tatoo on my forehead above my right eye.  Now, I’m not into tatoos–especially one on my forehead.  That’s a little too upclose and personal.  I relaxed, though, when I found out it was a tempory tatoo like the little kids get when they go trick-or-treating. 

My blood pressure was taken while getting the tatoo and a thermometer placed inside my right cheek (you know, those thermometers with a curly cord attached to a monitor that the nurse holds in her hand).  I felt so special with all this attention!  Suddenly the blood pressure cuff exploded off my arm and the thermometer shot out of my mouth when the nurse jerked around to catch the cuff. The tatoo lady kept on tatooing, though, and we decided to do the blood pressure and temp separately.  After this was safely done, My IV was placed which was not a terrible experience all in all.

Next, the nurse appeared with a long shot needle, saying, “Just to let you know this needle is not going in your eye.  It is not even going to touch your eye.  It just has a little xylocane in it that I’m going to carefully squirt into your eye to numb it up.”  I didn’t realize xylocane came in a gel.  In fact it was a very sticky gel that made my eyelashes stick together.  It was just like being slimed on ghostbusters.  I could barely open my eye so I decided it was best to just close both eyes.

They got me in a bed in the holding area and got me positioned real good and started my IV.  “What is that?” I asked.  “Oh it’s just something to relax you and a little something to help you not remember the procedure so well.”  An amnesiac, I thought.  I won’t remember a thing!

I was then wheeled into the surgery room and my sweet doctor said “Hello, again,” even though we had not yet said hello to each other.  My face was adorned with some kind of shield to expose only my right eye and my head positioned abnormally to the right, putting a strain on my neck.  I wiggled around trying to get situated, then the doctor was there putting a big round thing in my eye to keep it open and fluid flooded my eye–it actually felt good since my eye was starting to feel a little dry.  A bright light appeared overhead.  “Am I supposed to go toward that light?”  I asked.  “Yes,” the doctor matter-of-factly replied.  I think he had heard that one before.  The light got way too bright for comfort and I said something about it so he turned it down but it was still really hard to look at.  I felt him working in my eye, felt a little pressure and heard the doctor say, “Guess what I bought last night.”  After everyone guessed it turned out to be a bowling ball and there was some discussion about that.  I could tell when he was putting the lens in because he had someone calibrating it or something.  More of that lovely fluid washed over my eye.  They talked about the setting and the doctor said, “Are you sure it’s at a 5?  Because if it’s not she’ll be back.”  O please, I thought, let it be at a 5 because I don’t want to be back!  I remember thinking there is no way I’m going to forget this–amnesiac or no!

I guess they got it at a 5 because more beautiful fluid washed over my eye and the 15 minute surgery which felt much much longer was over.  The doctor tugged at the shield, pulling it off my face, which felt like I had just been skinned.  “Do I have any skin left?”  I asked him.  “Only on the left side,” he replied.  Obviously he had heard that one before, too.

They got me off the bed and offered me a comfy green overstuffed recliner.  “Oh, good, I get to take a nap,” I said.  “Nope,”said the attendant.  “We’re just getting your blood pressure and putting in some drops.  Would you like some juice or something?”  I tried to spread out the time it took to drink my apple juice so I could just chill a minute or two.  They brought my mom and my friend Bev back to see me.  “When will the amnesiac start working?”  I asked.  “Oh, probably by tomorrow,” the lady said.  My apple juice was gone and they were ushering me through a door to wait for my post-op.  I still remember everything so maybe they forgot to put the amnesiac drug in the IV afterall.  That is too bad because now I’m a bit reticent about having the left eye done.  But I do want to see, so I will go through with it.

I love the list of instructions I was given for post surgery do’s and don’t's.  Among them are:  Take your drops 4 times a day.  Don’t rub your eye.  Don’t poke yourself in the eye.  Don’t let shampoo get in your eye.  Thank God everyday for your vision.  I’m taking each of those very seriously, especially the last one.  I do thank God for my vision, and for new technology that allows us to recover lost vision.  I recommend it to you, too.  We can never thank our Heavenly Father enough for all he gives us.

Post Script:  Please read our numerous comments on this post.  There is a lot of good information submitted by other bloggers that you may find helpful.  Disclaimer:  This blog is written by and commented on by non-professionals in the eye care field.  We are simply relating our own experiences and any opinions expressed are solely those of the individual blogger.  Thank you for your interest and we wish you the very best in your own eye care experiences!  Smiles!~la

That was a good one!

July 16, 2008 at 2:18 am | Posted in challenges, humor, life's ups and downs | 5 Comments

This blog is dedicated to children with special needs, their families, and anyone who has ever made a trip to the emergency room or accompanied anyone in the emergency room.  I am a special education teacher in the school for exceptional students that my 17 year old son, Chad, attends and am well known around campus as “Chad’s mom.”  Chad is a handsome young man who is part Hawaiian and has muscular dystrophy and shows up as a lovely shade of honey brown on the autism spectrum.  He uses a walker and wheelchair to get around, loves music, loves to “cut up”, loves to look up LDS conference talks on the computer and LOVES The Price is Right.

Chad recently fell with his walker while with his very excellent caregiver, who responded promptly by calling 911 and going with him in the ambulance to the ER.  She always thinks ahead to what may happen and packed up DVD’s, a photo album, snacks, pull-ups and basically everything but the kitchen sink.  She is SO GOOD!  Chad has a spiral fracture to his left not so funny humerus and has been in a lot of pain.  He was treated in the ER, his arm wrapped and given a sling, and we were sent home.  He is on Vicoden which helps a lot but everytime he is moved it hurts a lot.

We saw paramedics Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and were in the ER on Monday and Wednesday.  We had an appointment at the Orthopedic Center on Tuesday and while trying to help Chad transfer from his wheelchair to the car, he didn’t sit far enough in and slid from the seat to the garage floor, getting his broken arm hung up on the car door.  We called the paramedics to get him up and into the house and they checked him out.  Chad and I were both crying, taking turns sobbing openly.  I think Chad was irritated that I was crying because that was HIS job.  We just stayed home the rest of that day.

Wednesday I let him sleep til noon because it was the first sleep he had in over 24 hours.  Linda (my sister) came over and helped me get him cleaned up, fed and medicated, then on the sly called for the paramedics to take us back to the ER to see if further damage had been done on Tuesday.  Chad suspected something was up and kept saying, “No doctor.  No doctor.”  When the paramedics arrived I told him we were going to ride in the ambulance and take a trip to the hospital but that there would be NO SHOTS and NO IV.  The medication was really working because he hardly complained of any pain.

The ride in the ambulance was quite routine.  Chad asked everyone their names (Tom and David) and whether they watch Drew Carey on the Price is Right, if they are a Seventy, if they watch The Golden Girls, and requested they sing We Are the World and Swing Low Sweet Chariot.  I had to do my usual rendition of the Sesame Street Ernie Song and the Teletubbies Theme Song.  He made sure to tell Tom he loves him and thanked him a handfull of times, after instructing him on what to do and telling him everything he knows that could fit into such a short ride.

Linda met us at the hospital and stayed with us until we got an  ambulance ride home after seeing the ER doctor and having about one million and one xrays.  Our lovely ER “room” was a bed in hallway 2.  A little lady named Edith was in hallway 1, about 10 inches away from Chad‘s bed.  Poor dear, she is “a diabetic” and has a touch of dementia and came in because she was visiting her daughter whose air conditioning was too cold and she thought she had contracted pnuemonia.  Turns out the hallway was colder than her daughter’s house and her feet were freezing because of the diabetes and she was too hot on her chest and back.  I introduced myself and tried to help how I could.  I offered to rub her feet to get the circulation going and she agreed to let me try.  Her feet felt extremely warm to me but I massaged them anyway.  When I asked if it was helping she sweetly replied, “No, Dear.  Your hands are like ice.”  I told the people at the desk about the cold air on her so they moved her to hallway 3 which was located a good 3 feet behind us.  They kept her well supplied with warm blankets for her feet and let her change into a hospital gown because her blouse was wet with sweat.

Miss Edith was so sweet and so impressed with Chad and his difficulties.  She reminded me a lot of my late Grandma Olie because of her loud mumbling and her rather rhy (rye? rie? wry?) sense of humor.  Some of the staff were leaving at their shift’s end and a colleague called out, “Bye, have a good one!”  Miss Edith mumbled within ear shot, “I wish we WERE having a good one.”  I turned and said, “Ms. Edith, you are too FUNNY!”

I kept trying to get Chad to cough, because he gets a lot of mucus in his throat that he can’t handle well when he lies on his back for long periods of time.  When he gave a good cough Linda and I would say, “There, that was a good one!”  A few times he would give a series of weak coughs that didn’t clear anything.  Miss Edith commented, “That was not a very good one! Try that again.”  Besides having Chad cough and rubbing Ms. Edith’s feet I busied myself with entertaining Chad.  I brought my digital camera with us on this trip because on previous trips to the ER Chad kept asking for a televison set to watch “Vanna.”  I didn’t have any footage of Vanna or of Pat Sajac on the camera but I did have footage of Chad’s most recent school chorus concert which he loves to watch.  Since every movement hurt his injured arm I held the camera for him, close to his face and turned the volume where it wouldn’t disturb others.  A gentleman at the nurses station kept giving me dirty looks which I ignored.  Once he made a trip down the hallway and, looking straight ahead at no one in particular said, “No cell phone use allowed, Ma’am.”  I thought it was kind of funny that Linda, who is a former ICU nurse never got caught using her hidden cell phone, yet I got caught using my camera.

After a verrrrrry long time, an ER doctor finally came to visit us in Room Hallway 2.  Chad immediately asked the doctor, “Are you an Elder?”  I immediately said, “Chad, not everybody attends our Church.”  The doctor replied, “Yes, young man, I’m an elder, but not in your Church.”  Chad was satisfied.  After talking to us for awhile the doctor turned and saw Linda standing against the wall and said, “Well Hey!”  Linda seems to know EVERYBODY at the hospital even though she hasn’t worked there for several years now.  She then introduced the doctor to me and said, “He and his family are in my ward (LDS Church).”  He ordered some more xrays and sent us down the hall where Linda knew ANOTHER doctor.  I’m so glad she has a medical network.  We get such good attention that way!  She introduced me to the xray doctor saying, “He’s in my ward, too.” Now in Tallahassee it is VERY unusual to run into one LDS doctor, much less two in one visit!  After several series of xrays, we returned once more to Room Hallway 2.

Eventually Miss Edith decided there really was nothing wrong with her (after we had all been there for about 3 hours) and that she wanted to go home.  She pulled off the covers and inched slowly down to the bottom of the bed and when a nurse came over she told her there was nothing wrong with her and she was going home.  (I’m not sure what her plan was because her daughter had had to leave for a doctor’s appointment and had not yet returned.)They said she could go home but only after her release papers were issued.  A couple more hours went by and Miss Edith’s daughter came to get her and sat with her in hallway 3 waiting for those release papers (In the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave, you know.)

Anyway we had arrived at the ER around 1:30pm and left in the ambulance shortly before 7:00 pm.  We said goodbye to Ms. Edith, still waiting for her release papers, and hoped to meet again under more pleasant circumstances.  We had another routine ride (this time home) in the ambulance with Chuck, Chuck, and Cindy.

Here’s hoping your next visit to the ER is every bit as bodacious as ours was~!!

Smiles!~Chad’s mom and Chad (aka the bahama mama and her big kahuna)

FYI- a kahuna is a Hawaiian priest, NOT a be-hind.

 

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