Eye Spy
Thought of a lot a lot of good opening lines*tried this one out on Mike and it got a laugh, so*
Mike, your worst fears are realized. I am still alive, proving that I don’t have to be dead to continue to haunt you.
(Thought I would share an interesting surgical experience, but now, having written it, it feels awfully narcissistic, and like, who cares? But what the hell*maybe it’s medically informative to the 1% interested*)
The eeriest thing about my pterygium excision and conjunctival graft was that I felt totally alert during the one hour procedure, even wanting to chat and jibe with Richard and Loraine. I wish I could say I had been one of those out-of-body perspectives from the ceiling so I could have seen exactly what was going on. Instead, I was fully in-body, with only my blurry pterygium-eye to reconnoiter, while Dr. Rodman pokes sharp instruments into itóbut without me feeling a thing.
I said at one point “so you went to Brown?â€. “No” he responded. Bull * I did remember that correctly. Maybe he misunderstood me. Linda kept telling me afterwards that I was mumbling. Maybe I was mumbling then and having a drug-induced conversation mainly with myself.
An hour or so later I was dozing drowsily in my reclining wheelchair in the recovery room, eye patch in place, hearing some guy to my left angling to be let go, and then Linda coming in looking for her husband. I roused briefly to claim my jacket out of my clothes bag, tried to say goodbyes to all the nice people that had helped me along the route from prep to recovery (Aaron the prep nurse, Mary who took my vitals, anesthetist Dr. Liu and her anesthetist nurse Loraine, etc ̱ but I could not remember them all, and I was again probably still mumbling) (PS Рno one knew Rob Steinberg).
As I was wheeled upstairs via the large elevator, I remember thinking (saying?), “So, this is what it’s like to be Arthur !â€. Helped into the front seat of the car, we were off to CVS for pain meds and then home to bed. Where I slept for fifteen hours, rousing only my Tylenols with codeine, lest my bruised eye start to complain too heavily.
While I thought I could play up the eye-patch-invalid-can’t-work-or-anything thing for several days, Dr. Rodman threw away my eye patch during my post-op visit the next day, saying my graft looked great (if he may say so himself), and that all I needed was “one drop four times a day, and come back in two weeks.” “I’m off to El Salvador tomorrow, to excise pterygia where they are plentiful among the natives [that work the fields and are in the near-equatorial sun all day]â€, he said. (In those parts they have a much more mundane name for pterygia: carnosidad , meaning fleshy outgrowth , which describes the murky, blood vessel-filled, flap on the cornea). It is nice to know that this very successful Boston ophthalmologist still has a Socratic human side.
My pterygium is gone, the swelling is down, I drove around a bit yesterday, and declare myself back on-line.
A close-up for the ophthtalmologically curious. The red part is where the pterygium was (should have take a before shot). Looks worse now, but the idea is that the redness will go away, leaving my eye not looking bloodshot much of the time, and hopefully my reading glass prescription will come back into the normal range as the astigmatized eyeball regains its normal spherical shape.
Damn straight you should’ve included a before shot! Or at least a link to a site showing same — such as: http://www.stlukeseye.com/Conditions/Pterygium.asp
And maybe also some statement on the salient symptoms necessitating the surgery. But we’re glad to hear the surgery went well (and that you’re still alive!). Modern medicine achieves miracles daily, and I share your appreciation of Rodman’s Socratic/Hippocratic/Samaritanic work.
Comment by one percent — January 30, 2005 @ 10:51 am
Dan, ewwww. I didn’t know Dr. R was a ‘very successful Boston ophthalmologist’. I knew he was good and one of many at Lexington Eye. He recently diagnosed me with a cataract in my left eye. My vision gets worse every year in the eye and he never saw it before my last visit. “I love a challenge” he said to me, and when he found the cataract he was beside himself. “You are my youngest patient ever with cataract…do you mind if I bring my tech in to examine you and see if she sees it…don’t tell her”. And just like that I was an anthropologic freak of nature. You don’t know how reading your experience made me feel better about him (I never felt he wasn’t competent…just young)…he will eventually do my cataract thing when glasses can no longer correct my vision. Your eye must have been crazy itchy before he removed the problem. And I love that he is off to El Salvador. So all in all your blog entry lowered my anxiety a bit. I think I just might look cute in an eye patch.
Comment by the eyes have it — January 30, 2005 @ 10:58 am
A very good likeness, 1%, of what mine looked like!
And I thought I did a good Michael ‘hidden alusion’ to the symptoms in my last paragraph– new reading glasses making everything look like skewed trapexoids and giving me a headache.
Comment by good likeness — January 30, 2005 @ 11:02 am
Funny, well written and informative – to a point – and thatÃs where you get a rap or two on the knuckles. You, who (rightly, it took years but I am coming ëround) repeatedly upbraided me for leaving way too much to the readerÃs imagination, tell this story as if your only audience are blood relatives. In addition to the salient symptom statement, who is Arthur?
But pshaw on all of that. IÃm glad your surgery was successful and without complications. Does this mean you will no longer view the world as if through tiny trapezoids?
And who is the eyes have it?
Comment by michael — January 30, 2005 @ 11:17 am
Dear eyes have it,
I can relate to being an anthropologic freak, but that’s a whole ‘nother story…
I do admit that ‘very successful Boston ophthalmologist’ are my words…
And to determine if you’d look cute in a patch, need a photo please…
Comment by eyeing you — January 30, 2005 @ 11:41 am
That eye sure looks familiar to me. I think the bloodshot is part of you. but I am glad its all over with
Comment by Cristy — January 30, 2005 @ 12:29 pm
Arthur == Arthur Laughland, Lin’s dad, mostly blind…
Comment by smiling — January 30, 2005 @ 1:09 pm
Glad you finally took care of the “carnosidad”, and are rid of the itching, and other vision problems.
Yes, most of the doctors are starting to look extremely young… more like our own Santiago everyday! (wonder why… hmmm)
A message to Matt, Spa book/wkbk should arrive soon.
Comment by Lilly — January 30, 2005 @ 2:20 pm
Lil, thanks for correcting my original made-up word for carnosidad , which I could not for the life of me remember after Rodman used it.
Comment by corrected — January 31, 2005 @ 7:39 am