[I had just been informed by doctors at the Jules Stein Eye Clinic that I needed emergency surgery immediately. ]
As Chic put it so eloquently in 1978: Freak Out!
It was now 7 at night. I had left my work half done at the office. I hadn't eaten. There was no one to come pick me up or get my car out of the hospital parking lot. My company had just switched medical insurance carriers and I didn't even have an ID card yet. I didn't know if it would cover something like this. I had been expecting the clinic to simply dole out a future appointment with a laser and a prescription for eye drops. But there was a possibility I could be BLIND, at least in one eye, where if a retinal detachment involves the central macula, eyesight in that eye is irretrievable.
I was shocked by what they were proposing. The operation involved knocking me out, extracting my eyeball, clamping it into a plastic belt called a scleral buckle that would keep my raggedy eye tissue together, then reinserting the eye over a gas bubble at the back of the socket that would further tamp down the retinal tissue. It sounded frightening and more than a little sick-making.
As the doctors kept trying to convince me-- taking turns running out to make all the surgical arrangements and sending me to their hospital intake office-- I alternated between being a rational adult and blubbering like a cranky toddler. I made a kazillion phone calls, mostly to my boss and to our insurance consultant on the East Coast, where it was way after business hours, and to many of my very busy, geographically dispersed friends in the hope they could fetch me post-surgery. I wept, I wailed, I ranted and railed. I was embarrassingly unhinged. I blame the freakout on fatigue, the unpleasant prospect of being a further burden on my overburdened friends, and the fact that I'd have to bail last minute on numerous projects I needed to make good on. Things weren't looking good.
Finally I reached a breaking point where good sense reasserted itself. I felt railroaded and needlessly frightened by the hospital staff. I suddenly turned off the waterworks, gathered up my stuff, and calmly informed the medical team that I was leaving. With four hours' worth of dilating drops still in my eyes, I stumbled down to the parking lot with one of the doctors literally trotting across the plaza after me, begging me not to go. "I'm not saying you could go blind overnight, but it's a possibility," he warned. "You shouldn't go."
I kept stepping. My rationale was this: I had gone weeks with the symptoms. Another day wasn't going to make a major difference. And I wasn't going to succumb to surgery with no way home, my car racking up charges in their parking lot, my work going begging, and a $10,000-plus surgery bill that I didn't know would be covered or not.
The next day I confirmed my insurance status, left my car at the job, and hied it over to the Jules Stein Eye Center. But in my hospital gown, cap and booties, with nurses pulling me onto a gurney, I was still phoning around desperately to find someone to pick me up and then drive me out to where I was staying. I left messages for several folks and finally connected with a guy friend who owns a 2-seater convertible just before they jabbed me with the anesthesia IV.
Silly me--I'd been thinking that the operation would be like a laser procedure--the eye would be the only thing affected. I hadn't banked on the impact of anesthesia and a major surgery (the hint was that I had to chuck all my clothes for a hospital gown, duh). When I woke up, I felt as though I had been hit by a truck. My left eye was bandaged (they'd do laser work on the right eye later), and I could barely hold my head up as they wheeled me in a chair out to recovery.
"Your friend is here to pick you up," chirped the nurse. "She's right outside."
"SHE?" I repeated.
I had been expecting my male buddy and his Miata. For some reason I'd told him I would meet him outside afterward. I was in no condition to get up and meet someone outside!
Thank God for my girlfriend L, who got my desperate messages, dropped everything, drove to the hospital and located me. I ended up phoning Miata Man, who was indeed at the curb, and sending him home. It was to the better. L, who had dealt with the needs of her ill mother for a long time, was well-versed in hospital routine. She also had an SUV, a smoother ride for a post-surgical patient. While my head lolled and I fought nausea, she drove us to a pharmacy, went in and paid for my prescriptions, then drove me to my friends' place. I could not have stood on my feet long enough to get the scrips myself. My teeth chattered and I shivered uncontrollably thanks to the anesthesia.
Thus began my slow recovery. Two weeks of continuously lying on my left side in one position so the gas bubble in my eye could sit in the proper position and do its work. I could barely eat, I developed kinks in my neck from the position, and I had a lot of time to think about my past and future. Through the next four weeks I went from seeping bandage to metal eye guard to sexy black eye patch, all the while unable to drive or read.
During that time I received many solicitous, concerned phone calls. Which was great. But also scary, because I heard from friends and relatives I had not heard from in years. Was my mother telling people I was dying? Did my friends fear I'd be stricken blind? Was I now eternally housebound and frail? Was I soon to be relegated to the cane-and-dog set? Or was this eye operation so much more serious than I still failed to recognize?
It was strange. I'd had other more serious surgeries in the last five years, but this eye thing really got people fascinated, horrified, and engaged. The idea of not being able to see, however briefly, or of having the eyes handled in any way just geeks people out. There's a squeamishness there. Perfectly rational people who asked me to explain my surgery would turn ashen, gag, and stop me the minute I got to the details of the scleral buckle procedure. I admit that when I first heard what the doctors planned for me, I was freaked, but now that I've been through it I'm unaffected.
Anyway, it's four months since the surgery. I had to go back to the clinic a few times for laser work to repair retinal tears in my right eye, and that was easy (if you call the feeling of stinging, burning ants attacking the inside of your eye easy) compared with the severity of the surgical episode.
I'm up on my feet. I can drive. I'm back to work. Miracle of miracles, I found an apartment and moved in. I'm not blind. My abysmal failure at moving cross-country seems a blip on the screen.
I'm grateful for everything in my life right now. Because I can see it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment