Check pirate off the possible career path...

Turns out I don't make a great pirate.  Damn.  Being completely unable to see out my right side is very disconcerting.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Surgery was Monday at 1:30.  No food allowed after Sunday at midnight.  Not cool.   So of course I had Monday breakfast at 11:45 Sunday night ;)   Chris took the day off work to take me to the surgery.  I got up, dialed into work for a bit, took Sasha for a walk (something I knew I wouldn't be able to do afterwards) and mostly just killed time.  I didn't feel stressed, but I know myself well enough to know I was nervous.

At the clinic I was given an arm band.  There were no drops in the waiting room this time, just straight to waiting room B.   We were there for a bit, but then into a back room I hadn't been in before.   Chris was able to come with me at that point -- they put a ton of drops in my eyes and had me get dressed in very fancy scrubs. The nurse made a mark on my face over the eye they're supposed to operate on.  Somehow both reassuring and disconcerting at the same time.

Chris was sent back to the waiting room while I was escorted to a chair in the hallway -- it had a half curtain around it.  There another nurse came with more drops and another scribble on my forehead.  Then the anesthetist came and put a needle in my hand -- first try.  First health care professional ever to manage that on the first try.  Sweet.  Said I would be conscious for the surgery but dopey, and that I'd be going in in about 1/2h.

1/2h was more like 5 minutes (and no, I wasn't asleep -- they hadn't actually given me any drugs yet!).  I saw the person leave the operating room before me; they must've done the fastest clean ever and as I was being escorted in thing were still being wiped down.  3 or 4 people in the room.  They sat me down in what closely resembled a torture chair, and I recall them having trouble adjusting it -- pretty sure my head wasn't *supposed* to thud backwards!  But by the time they got it sorted out, the anesthetist was back inserting something into the needle in my hand.

And the next thing I remember, Chris was there and somebody was talking at me about next appointment.  Seriously.  There was no "semi-conscious" about it.  I was out of it.  And apparently out of it all day -- asking the same questions repeatedly.  Much like somebody with a concussion does -- is the only way I can think of comparing it.  All with no idea it'd already been asked and answered. I was also very ill.  Throwing up both in the clinic and on the ride home.  All kinds of unpleasant.  My eye didn't hurt.  It was bandaged and had a shield over it.  I could tell I couldn't open it, but other than that, no pain at all.   Did I ever feel sick though.  And tired.  But not allowed to lie down :(   Fail.
So when I got home I went straight to bed -- propped up a pile of pillows, curled into a ball, and went to sleep.  At some point I woke up and Chris brought me some toast to eat -- yeah, I married a good one :)  I felt a bit better so I got up, but didn't last long before I went back to bed.

All good till I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like somebody was stabbing half a dozen red hot needles in my eye.  And not a steady pain I could eventually tune out, nope this was stab, wait till breathing starts again, stab again.  NOT fun.  I went and found the Tylonal 3s Chris had made appear earlier and downed a couple of those.  Found the one position I could sit in that didn't hurt, and basically stayed that way the rest of the night.  Ugh.

Early morning start to go back to the surgeon.  They took the eye patch off and cleaned me up a bit (I tell ya - it was a great look.  Esp with the iodine all over my face).  When the nurse said I could open  my eye, all I could see was a perfectly round, very thick, black ring (which I could see with it closed, so this was not a surprise) and light.  She asked me to read the letters on the wall.  Yeah right.   What wall?

"Can you see my hand"  Yes!  hahaha she was waving it -- must've been inches in front of my face and I could see the light move.  "How many fingers?"  I have no idea...   Also had to take my contact out of my left eye at this point, so was very blind now.  Promptly failed that eye test too and was sent back out to the waiting room.

Eventually got called in to see the surgeon who said the surgery had gone well, took a quick look and told me my retina was reattached.  Sweet.  I asked about the black ring, "is it on the bottom?" Yes...  "It's a gas bubble, it'll go away."  Sweet.   Told next appointment date and time and off we go.

Get home, feeling all kinds of nauseous again, so lie down for a bit.  Eventually get up to go put in drops -- four types which have to be taken 3x/day at least 10 mins apart from one another.  This is an excessive time commitment.

Now I have never had an issue with putting drops in my eyes -- I've worn contacts daily since I was 12 or 13.  But in this case, I couldn't focus well enough to see the bottle.  And it hurt to physically open my eye.  Was a bit of a challenge.  Regardless, I managed the task.   And then put my left lens back in and took a look...

Oh dear.  I look like I was in a fight and...  well...  I'm not sure I won.  My eye is basically swollen shut, but if I force it open the pupil is entirely dilated -- making it creepily large -- and not entirely circular, has a bit of a zig zag at the bottom which just annoyed my OCD, but I suspect is probably the result of the aforementioned bubble.  The white parts of my eyes are almost entirely red.  Seriously less than attractive.  And to top it off, the eye is almost constantly running so I have lovely crusties all in the eyelids and around my eye and cheek.  Oh, and it hurts.  Did I mention the stabbing needles?  Admittedly way less when I'm up -- it's much worse lying down, so I'm just not doing that anymore.  And I have a wicked headache to go along with it and nausea that comes and goes.  All the kinds of awesome.

Anyways -- when I managed to get the whole round of eye drops in and was feeling moderately human, I put on the oh-so-sexy sun glasses they provided me with and Chris and I headed to Ikea.  So now I can at least claim I was slightly productive today.  However, by the time I got home I was feeling ill and exhausted again so I went back to sleep while Chris went to tackle what's left of our house.

Cause I'm not allowed to help anymore.  In fact, I'm not allowed to do anything.  Felt really useless when C had to ask a random stranger to help him move a box that was not particularly heavy, just too awkward for one person, because I'm not allowed to lift more than 5 lbs.  I'm also not allowed to have my head level or inverted -- which means bending down to pick up anything has to be done with proper "text book on head" posture.  Who remembers this stuff???  I'm on the way back to standing up before I remember -- usually because I get a wicked stabbing feeling in my head.  Any form of exercise and lying flat out are also off the permissible list.  As is being anywhere near the farm (dusty environment).   Suspect it'll be a lovely couple weeks.

Also have to admit I find it really disconcerting not to remember rather huge portions of yesterday or entire conversations I had with people...  Less cool.

Plus sides -- apparently the surgery has gone well and my vision in that eye through the cloud seems to be much better.   So once said cloud is gone, I may not need contacts in that eye anymore.  Woohoo!   The drops make me thirsty, so I'm drinking tons more water than normal.  And I seem to be nauseous a lot so eating less.  All good given the complete lack of exercise ;)

And tomorrow is the first day since November that I've had literally nothing planned.  All day.   Last week was the first weeknight with nothing planned...  Now a full day.  Really not sure what to do with it, since everything I'd like to do with it involves breaking the above rules.  But still probably a good thing.

Happy Canada Day all.