It’s Monday 12th October. I had just been to the Crime Museum in London, and having my last meal. It was a Chinese. Very lovely and nice. But this would be last meal before I would of had to fast for my surgery the following morning. I make the most of it, and eat as much as I can. People tell me I’ll be very hungry after I wake up from the surgery, which was under general anaesthetic. My family told me to have an early night, but as I knew, I would be up much of the night anxiously waiting for 6am to come by.
It’s around 2am, and I take my last sip of water (I wasn’t allowed to drink after 5:30am and I wouldn’t be awake by then. I close my eyes, and then the next thing I remember is being awoken by my mum at 6:45am. “Come on darling, it’s time to get up”. I do what most people do and close their eyes and soak in the rest of the time they could in their bed. Off I go.
I was looking forward to this surgery. Mainly because it’s been talked about, debated about, and planned about for so long, it felt weird that it was actually going to happen within the day.
The reason for this surgery is that I had one of the most severe cases of Keratoconus they had seen in a very long time. Especially someone so young (18 at the time of being diagnosed). Funnily enough, a month before the surgery, while having my eyes scanned, the nurse kept thinking I was blinking throughout it because the test kept coming back as purple and black colours. Which often means the eye is in a pretty bad state. So I had to spent 30 minutes having a nurse watch me to make sure I wasn’t blinking while another took out the test. Funny how life works sometimes.
That type of scenario proves why I needed a corneal transplant so badly. Even the nurses were going mad about how bad my eye looked compared to my right eye (which is quite healthy after my CXL surgery and it seems that the Keratoconus has been halted).
Anyway, back to the main story. I brought along my Bronson book (I had been watching a lot about Charles Bronson, now known as Charles Salvador for some time), my Mophie case for my iPhone just in case I had to wait all day and if my iPhone was to die. And that was it. On my way in a baggy grey shirt with some grey jogging bottoms, because I knew I had to be as comfy as I wanted to be, because this would be more serious than my cross linking. I regret not bringing my headphones because after I was out of the recovery ward, I just wanted to blast some Aphex Twin on my phone.
We arrive at the ‘Eye Day Surgery Unit’ which is this massive cubical in the middle of my local hospital and we go inside and register so they know I turned up and just wait. The nurse then calls my name (I will tell you though, feels so good to hear my new legal name than my boring birth name). I get called to ½ of the wards they have ready to question the patient and do anything that is necessary which the other waiting patients don’t need seeing. I have been through this sort of procedure before and I know what happens. They ask to verify who you are, why you’re at the unit and why do I need this surgery. Basic stuff. But knowing me, I give the nurse a full lecture as to why I needed the surgery, and she knows I mean business. Or I am just crazy. Probably the last one. Nope, definitely the last one. I am very crazy.
I fill out forms and wait to be seen by my consultant who would be conducting the surgery. He calls me into one of the offices. “How are you feeling today, Ollie?” he asks as I close the door and walk to my seat. “I’m very nervous but excited!” I say quite quickly and nervously. “Good, what we’re (him and two other people which looked like students) going to do is quickly measure your eye to see how much tissue needs to be taken off, and these two will quickly observe your eye and what needs to be done to make this surgery successful. So I lay my chin on those machine which they use to examine your eyes with. I hear my surgeon mumbling to himself measurements of my eyes and other stuff he wants to note to himself. “Now”, my consultant says, “If you two have a quick look at this persons Keratoconus you will see what I’ll be doing during the Keratoplasty surgery and how severe his Keratoconus is”. They observe my eye then I am sent out back to the waiting room.
I then meet the Anaesthesiologist, who, of course, will be putting me to sleep before I head into theatre. She measures my height and weight so she knows how much dosage she needs to put me to sleep and such (hence why she’s an Anaesthesiologist).
As I was going to be put under general, they wanted me to be comfy, yet want access to my chest and such if any problems occurred (which didn’t). I was told to put a gown which they gave me on and special tights which you have to wear during the op (I forgot the reason why but yeah, can’t be asked to Google it at this moment of time). With the tights on, the gown on and my red Nike shoes on, I looked and felt like someone who claimed they were the second coming of Henry VIII.
Before I’m asked to go with the doctors, the nurse starts giving me eye drop after eye drop. The first stung like a bitch, so obviously that was the local anaesthetic, because they always f%&*ing hurt. Then she gives me another one which makes everything in the room greenish yellow. Charlotte (my sister) says that it made my eye look like as if I had cross linking surgery again. Ah, the good old days.
Minutes after, I go to the toilet and give all my electronics to my family and other personal items, and I walk into the anaesthetic room. I have been through this procedure before. Lie on a bed, and let them do what they need to do. The thing I was worried about the most was the IV needle. As most are, I’m not a big fan of needles. So I was a bit anxious but looking back, the IV was the least of my worries. I had never been under general so this was going to be interesting. They put this tube like thing around my arm, and then ask me to open and close my hand. I had always wondered how they put the IV in, and I didn’t use my common sense, but hey. They couldn’t find a vein so another nurse held my arm done by the side of bed and asked me to open and close my hand again and they found one. “You’ll feel a slight scratch”. Famous last words. I felt it going in, but it didn’t actually hurt as much as I thought it would, considering it was going into my vein. Around 30 seconds later, the needle did start feeling a bit itchy and irritating, but again, least of my worries.
They start putting this equipment on me, like the heart rate and etc, etc. They give an oxygen mask. And I have to say that pure oxygen is disgusting. The nurse says to me “Right, we’re ready to put you to sleep now”. I wanted to see how they did it. So I watched them inject it through the IV tube and it was this large syringe filled with clear liquid but with a few air bubbles here and there. All of a sudden, I start feeling pins and needles in my arm and I felt so knackered. My last words before I went to sleep were “Oh god, that is strong…” then I blacked out. It was a weird experience, but it was kinda cool, I guess.
All of a sudden, I start hearing beeping and felt like as if the bed I was on was moving and being turned around. I open my eye (my right one) and I realise that I’m in a room that I wasn’t familiar with. I was in the recovery ward. This really nice young guy gently wakes me up and says “Hi there sir, the operation was successful and you’re in the recovery ward. We’ll going to take you out in a minute”. I kept opening and closing my eyes and looking around my area. I noticed that I couldn’t open my left eye, and that it was patched. I couldn’t believe that it (the operation) had been done. It felt like I closed my eyes for like two minutes. Amazing how science works.
Around 5 minutes after waking up, I was wheeled back to the waiting room (they have two wards in there) and I noticed my family in their seats. They didn’t recognise me at first, until I started waving at them. I could hear my mum whispering “He’s out! He’s out!”. They walk up to me and the first thing I ask is for some water. I can tell you now, that sip of water I took was the best I ever had. I just blurted “God that water is f&*∞ing amazing”.
I waited and waited for the nurse to come and see me. I couldn’t open my eyes. So I had some assistance from my sister to walk me around the waiting room. Which consisted of bumping into the other patients and saying sorry whilst still in my hospital gown. I did my business in the toilet and went back to the ward. People say to you that you feel really hungry after being put to sleep, but I felt like I had eaten a couple hours ago and didn’t have any real appetite.
The nurse was satisfied that I could home, gave me my eyedrops and tablets, and discharged me. I have to admit the first few days were uncomfortable and I couldn’t open my eyes for the same duration. But I was prying my left eye open two days after the op, and my body couldn’t cope with how clearly I could see. Now note, when I say ‘clearly’ I mean ‘everything is still hazy but most of the halo’s are gone’. My balance was everywhere and even felt a bit sick.
But here I am now, two weeks after my operation, and typing this blog. My consultant has said that I have done three months worth of healing, and that’s mainly down to my mum giving me my eyedrops when I needed them, and I am doing well at the moment.
I feel excited for the future, and I hope that one day, I can have the vision that I once had and loved.
Ollie x