lol going blind at 22: surgery trip report

[saucyspade19]

Tl;dr cliff notes: I has a transplanted cornea

Preface: My last big post (that can be found here ) told the first chapter of my story, and this is the trip report. At 19, I was diagnosed with keratoconus, a genetic, degenerative eye condition that leads to thinning and bowing out of the cornea, so vision becomes distorted. It seems to either strike young and rapidly, as is my case, or later in life where it tends to progress in a slower, more treatable way. In about two years, I went from glasses to hard contacts to hybrid contacts to being untreatable. I struggled through the last couple semesters at college, graduated, and took the final step in scheduling a corneal transplant.

My family and I shopped a few surgeons in the Chicagoland area, but settled on a specialist outside of Indianapolis who performed a new transplant procedure called DALK. Basically, rather than taking out my whole cornea and sewing in a new one, he uses the bottom layers of my cornea, takes off the top bowing layers and then grafts on the donor cornea, after reshaping it. This significantly reduces the risk of rejection, as I keep more of my own eye.

So my parents and I drove down to Indy the day before the surgery, checked into the nice suite my nit dad got for once, and had an equally nice dinner at PF Changs. Tried to relax the night before, but it was tough, and I didn’t sleep well. Next morning at 11, I went to the surgical center on an empty stomach, waited an hour or so and then they called me back. I changed into the standard surgical gown and slippers, and the nurse tried to start an IV. She missed my vein like three times because I was emaciated from not eating, and it hurt like hell. She finally got it in, and the Ativan chilled me out.

I am such a heavyweight with alcohol and painkillers, and this was no different. It didn’t really do much for me. At this point, I went under the only general anesthesia of the surgery. They put me out while they injected anesthetic directly into my optic nerve, going in through the space between the eye and the socket. They brought me back five minutes later, and I was blind in my left eye. It was weird.

About ten minutes later, they wheeled me back into the operating room. This is where things get interesting. I was saying about how I am a heavyweight with the drugs, well, they gave me a little bump of the Ativan as everything is getting ready around me, and I notice that I am starting to see out of my left eye again. I am thinking “oh [censored], this is gonna be one of those TLC shows where the person is awake during surgery and the doctors don’t know, wonderful.” I said “Hey, uhh, I can see out of my left eye.” The doctor responded, oh, that’s normal, about 1/10 people see even with the eye blocked.”

Are you freaking seriously?

So the surgery begins, and I have a front row seat. I see them prepping me, putting on the clockwork orange-style retractor, and then the doctor cutting away at my eye. Next, this weird device comes on the retractor, and something is on my eye, apparently the donor cornea. I think after this, they were making sure it fit right and making the micro adjustments, but the cornea is basically prepped and ready to go before surgery, so this part was minor. Then came the fun part, the stitches. I sat there, totally lucid, while they stitched up my eye, and my vision was decent enough to see the needle, and I could feel the pressure and hear the sound of it going in and out as the doctor sewed it up.

They wheeled me out after about an hour and a half, and they got me some sprite, I chilled for a few minutes but was basically ready to go immediately. So they cleaned all the medical tape and stuff off me, took out the IV and I was up and out. I was extremely hungry and I opted for some Maggiano’s. I rolled in there looking fabulous with my eye patch on, ordered up some lasagna, and within five minutes of sitting down, I began to feel like someone had stabbed me in the eye multiple times. Which, if you haven’t read the previous paragraphs, was exactly the case. I told my parents we better head back to the hotel because I feel like death, and I need my pain pills. We got our food to go, and I shoveled in half my meal before popping three tylenol3’s and passing out in bed.

I woke up next morning, and puked. Probably the worst thing you can do after eye surgery, but it was uncontrollable. It was probably the worst I felt throughout the whole thing. Lying on the bathroom floor, dry heaving, shaking, freezing. It was horrible. That passed, and I went to my day after doctor appointment. Everything looked about standard for one day post-op, and having a bright light shined in my eye was not cool.

We drove back to Chicago after another night in the hotel, where I slept all day and all night. The next week was spent lying in bed with my eye patched, having my mom put ointment and eye drops in my super-sensitive eye four times a day, and listening to episodes of the radio show “loveline” on my computer. Possibly the best show ever, and at two hours an episode, you can get through a whole day of shuteye pretty quickly.

After this immotile week of hell, I finally started getting up and walking around, lying in front of the tv, and gradually adjusting to the light. The donor cornea had a defect on the surface, and after two weeks it had completely healed, and bright lights didn’t hurt me anymore.

I’ve made about ten trips back and forth to the doctor, which are eight hour round trip, and suck ass, but are necessary, and I’ve gotten used to that. I got off the ointment after the first week, then it was eye drops eight times a day, then four times a day, which is what I am still doing now.

Last week (three weeks post-op), I had a minor setback at my checkup, when the doctor found that nearly all my stitches were loose. I had no clue how this happened, and the result was him having to restitch them right then and there. It was the most intense half hour of my life, seriously. They put numbing drops in my eye, taped my head down to the table, and went to town replacing all the stitches, while I was totally sober and coherent. After it was done, the doctor didn’t think I would need any pain medication, and about an hour into the car trip I felt that soul crushing post-stitch pain again. After three hours of hell, I got home, popped some leftover tylenol3’s and went to bed. I was up and about the next day, so it wasn’t as bad as the first time, however.

Alright, so now here I am, five weeks out. I am a college grad and I cannot get a full time job for at least a year, because I have to stay under my parents insurance for all these doctor appointments. Also, all the rules of what I can’t do because of the surgery hold me back from a lot of things I used to do. The day of surgery, I weighed 180lbs, and I was squatting, deadlifting and benching 225lbs. I now weight 160. Working out and playing sports was a huge part of my life, and now that is gone forever, at age 22. Until the stitches come out, I can’t lift more than 30 lbs. After that, heavy weightlifting is out of the question, as my eye will always be weak in one spot, and I could blow out the transplant with the pressure. Being able to see is good, but I miss working out, and I am going to miss baseball. I could hardly watch the playoffs (and after my Indians collapsed, I definitely can’t anymore) without thinking about how I’ll never pitch another game. Poker is fun, but it isn’t the same as sports. Nothing will ever fill that hole, which is what my parents keep telling me to do.

So, for now, I’ll be trying to find a part time job that I can do, grind out some money playing poker and try to set up some kind of future while I am stuck in this proverbial holding pattern in life. I have a lot of nice things, a wonderful girlfriend, decent enough parents, a roof over my head and a little money in my pocket, but I still feel empty. I feel like because of this, life is going to be an uphill battle, but I don’t want to give up just yet.

lol at ending on introspective lifetime tv-esque gayness. I apologize for that.

it's good to be back and reading all the ridiculousness that is 2p2.

[doubLe a tom]

the numbing drops they put in your eye is cocaine fwiw

[tedfurlong]

Maybe your new eyeball came from a psychic and you can get a sidekick and solve crimes or something!

[The Man Mulcahey]

fwiw i think that you should tell your gf that no sports left a hole in your life that she can't fill. post a tr.

[Smell The Glove]

this is a good read, and I hope that everything works out for you, dude.

[PhilBeans]

Wow, this sounds [censored] miserable. Sorry to hear this man. Gl.

[Labarde]

Thanks for the trip report. Keep your head up dude. Hope stuff starts to get better for you soon. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[doubLe a tom]

yeah srsly good luck with this OP. I cant even imagine goin through that [censored].

I got the same problem with sports though. I love to play basketball and football, but my knees are so [censored] up I cant run fast or jump at all and it hurts like hell to try. Some days I can barely make it up stairs and im only 20 yrs old [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[huber117]

i dont know you but its good to hear your ok. on the bright side you can see, id choose a year of restrictions if it ment a lifetime with eyesight. gl in the future.

[nation]

sorry to hear about this.

"decent enough parents" is there a backstory behind that comment?