Complication

I had my cataract surgery yesterday.

Of course, I turned out to be the 1 person in 50 who has a post-operative complication.

A couple of hours after the procedure, my eye started to hurt. By the time I got home, it was really uncomfortable. When the doctor called me on the phone to followup later in the evening and I told him what I was experiencing, he got in his car, picked me up and my house, and took me to his office in town right away.

It turned out I had an abnormal buildup on pressure inside my eye. His meter read "42" on whatever scale it is they use. So he got some sort of tool that looked like a pipe tamper, pressed the flat portion of it against my cornea next to the incision, applied pressure, and forced some vitreous humour out of the hole, similar to popping pus out of a zit. It. Really. Hurt. Then he took another pressure reading, and it was "8".

Within minutes, the pain started to go away. He gave me some extra drops to put in my eye twice a day to try to keep the intraocular pressure down, then he drove me back home.

I'll see the doctor again in his office this afternoon.

 

Good eye news

At my first scheduled post-op appointment earlier today, my eye doc assured me that I am doing alright despite the initial problem with my intraocular pressure the previous night. My "near" vision has already improved to 20/20, which he said most people don't attain until several days after cataract surgery. My distance vision was still not-so-hot, but it's already noticeably better than it was before my operation, and actually, by the end of daylight today, I felt like that was getting close to 20/20, too.

The main problem I have now is that the vision in my left eye is very "wobbly." This morning, I was afraid that somehow the implant had become unstable, but the doctor assured me that it is properly positioned and that a bit of wobbliness is normal at this stage until the lens capsule "shrink wraps" the new implant in place. Now that I know this isn't anything abnormal, it's kind of funny to look at my eye in the mirror and actually be able to see light reflect off the new lens and "sparkle" as the lens wobbles. The doctor could actually see the wobble in my new lens while standing a couple of feet away from me. So it isn't just my imagination, but it also isn't anything to worry about, apparently, so I won't. It may take a couplethree weeks to go away, but knowing it will eventually, I am content.