This one really is a right cunt to be sure.
For the last couple of weeks, Mrs D has complained of distorted vision and a black fuzzy line across her right eye. Trip to the opticians quickly confirmed a detached retina in her right eye and we’re told to go fetch the car and drive immediately to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital where we spend Friday afternoon in the emergency eye clinic.
Like the song says “on Saturday and Sunday they do no work at all, so ’twas on the Monday morning that” we get a call from the hospital saying come in on Thursday ‘cos we’re going to operate.
The procedure is a right sod. They remove some of the vitreus from your eye using a laser and inject a gas bubble to force the retina back in place. Then they stitch up the hole in your eyeball. It ain’t nice but I suppose it beats going blind in one eye.
But it’s the post op thats the real cunt. They don’t warn you about this bit. First you have to keep your face pointing downwards for the first 24 hours (we’re lucky because some people have 7 days of this). This makes sleeping extremely difficult so she sat all night in the kitchen chair with her head resting on her arms on the table. I sat with her all night so as you can imagine we were both totally knackered.
She went into post operative shock in the early hours but pleased to say she got through it in one piece. At least there’s some good news because after 24 excruciating hours she is allowed to leave the kitchen table and needs to spend the next 7 days looking downwards with her left cheek on a pillow. We also have steroid drops to kill the swelling and anti bacterial drops to kill any infection.
She can see sod all out of her right eye which in any case looks like she’s gone three rounds with Mike Tyson. As I write this she is hunched over the table with her forehead on a yoga block snoring her head off. The poor bugger is totally knackered as it’s the first sleep either of us has managed since yesterday morning.
Yes, this procedure is a real cunt and the post op procedure is just as bad if not worse.
And at the end of it all, a good result is 80% normal vision restored – definitely a weapons grade cunt if ever there was one…
Link – not for the squeamish :
Medical Optics Link
Nominated by: Dioclese
(More information here: Day Admin – NHS News Link )



