Your Going To Insert
What Where
I don't care what kind of surgery your facing just the word
surgery tends to rev up the nervous system in anyone's body.
And of course your surgeon brushes right over all your fears
by telling you "don't worry about anything I do this procedure a thousand times
a year."
I looked at him seriously when he said he would insert a new
lens in my right eye after he removed the cataract with my reaction being "your
going to insert what where."
Right doc I understand where your coming from but I'm
concerned about the part of the consent I have to sign for which says, "the
result of the surgery cannot be guaranteed in your or any other patients case,"
and what about the part telling me about "complications of surgery in general
and hospital admission may be necessary from presently unforeseen conditions
before, during or after surgery."
Whew.......should I really go
through with this? Really all I've experienced is poor sight produced by the
cataract.......come on now Ed that's reason enough to get this done and over
with.........remember you use those eyes to write your columns and feature
stories.
With an accumulation of nagging from
you know who and conversations from folks who have had cataract surgery I made
the appointment with Dr. Christopher S. Jordan of the Northeast Eye Institute in
Scranton, Pa.
A brief description of cataracts is
that it is a natural clouding of the lens of the eye resulting in blurred
vision.....and its a very common condition occurring in 91% of Americans aged 75
and over......guess I fit that category.
We arrived at the Northeast Eye
Institute's state-of-the-art Ambulatory Surgical Center about an hour earlier
then scheduled to find the reception area packed with about 30
people....wow....all these people having eye surgery....well they all definitely
fit the category described above with some in wheel chairs and others using a
cane.......thank God I'm not yet faced with the many problems some of these
folks have.
Trying to act cool to this
procedure is difficult and finally they called my name.......I quickly told the
attendant that I should run into the bathroom........thinking that I don't want
to have to relieve myself during surgery.
I was taken into a small room where
the nurse asked me to remove any jewelry I had around my neck and she gave me a
surgical smock after I took my shirt and undershirt off.
As I was escorted into the next
large room with four beds, two occupied by patients, I was asked to lay down and
another attendant said she was going to put a needle into my left arm, attach
a heart monitor and wrap a blood-pressure pad around my right
arm.
I asked if they were going to knock
me out and the nurse said no just giving you a mild sedative to relax
me.......o-boy here we go.
They wheeled me into the operating
room, Dr. Jordan greeted me, the surgery was started and some 10 to 12 minutes
later it was done and I never felt any discomfort.
We were sent on our way with
eye-drop instructions and that the doctor would see me the next morning for a
post-op examination.
Simple, painless and an experience
that really amazed me. The end results are outstanding.
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