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Sunday, November 4, 2007

Road to... new eyes! (The Aftermath)

I woke up on Wednesday morning after the surgery and I knew for sure I could see. Everything in our bedroom was clear to me, yet still cloudy.

The best way I can describe the cloudiness I've been experiencing... for contact wearers, if you wear your contacts and fall asleep, and wake up, and they're all dried out and stuck to your eyes? Know how your vision is sorta cloudy? That's what it looks like. For non-contact wearers, I guess the best analogy I can come up with is that it looks like when you get out of the shower, and the bathroom is kinda steamy so it's "cloudy" in there.

My post-op appointment was at 8:15 a.m., so I got up and got ready to go the doctor (which basically consisted of changing my clothes into OTHER comfy clothes, pulling my hair up, brushing my teeth, and leaving the house). At my appointment, Dr. Hindman checked out my eyes with her little microscope thing, and then performed a basic eye test. I could already see 20/20 unassisted. Pretty damn amazing.

I was told I could stop using the steroid eye drops (which I was happy about since they stung, and I could taste them in the back of my throat whenever I used them... weird, I know). I did, however, have to start artificial tears and antibiotic eye drops. The antibiotic drops were to be used 4 times a day for five days, and the artificial tears were supposed to be used every hour or so. Whenever I'm watching TV or on the computer, I try to remember to use them every half hour because activities like this make your eyes stare and you don't blink as much as you should.

I spent Wednesday and Thursday home from work just getting used to my new vision. It would have been pretty painful and annoying to sit in front of a computer all day so I'm glad I took the two days off. By Wednesday night, I was feeling good enough to have Michael take a few pictures.

Here I am, showing off my wonderfully fashionable goggles:
Aren't they pretty?? Luckily, I only had to wear them full-time until my post-op appointment the morning after the surgery. I do, however, have to wear them to bed for 5-7 nights. It's really FUN to sleep in goggles, I tell you. I've been doing OK with it, which I'm grateful for. The worst part is that they ask you to tape them to your face using this REALLY sticky tape they give you. They don't want the goggles to move on your face during the night and bump your eye. The tape is much worse than ripping off a bandaid in the morning, and it irritates my skin, which is just great. But I'd rather be safe than sorry, so I've been following doctor's orders on it.

Here is a close-up of my right eye with the broken blood vessels:

It made a really nice look for Halloween. Even though we don't have any trick-or-treaters at our house. :( It's already starting to look a lot better, but it will likely be with me for another week or so. It's like a bruise, so it takes a while to go away.

I've been using the eye drops pretty religiously, and my eyes feel pretty good. I'm still getting a bit of the cloudiness, but I'm told that's normal. My vision is also kind of unstable. It'll be really clear at times, and sort of blurry at others. Especially if I'm coming from the outdoors (which is always really clear) to indoors and there's a change in lighting. It'll get better with time. I have a one-week follow-up appointment with Dr. Hindman on Wednesday so I'll get to ask her a bunch more questions and she'll check me out again to make sure I'm moving along in the healing process.

I'm looking forward to the cloudiness going away, and for my vision to become fabulous all of the time. But things have gone amazingly well and I really have no complaints so far. I'm really glad I had the surgery, and as long as everything heals as it should... I'm going to be absolutely ecstatic with the whole experience.

I guess that's about all I can say at this point (do you think I've said enough?? haha). If anyone out there is interested in any other information, or you have questions, please let me know. I'd be more than willing to share any knowledge or experience I have had with it all.

1 comment:

Amy said...

great posts! i just had the surgery yesterday, and it's reassuring to know that other people feel uncomfortable after the surgery. most of what's out there is just on the great results (which they are) but it's also pretty scary....