“Scars are history written on the body”---Kathryn Harrison
It wasn’t exactly a surprise, like one of those sudden Florida thunderstorms that pops up out of a clear blue sky every Summer afternoon. More like the easy rainshowers which slowly float in from the west over the Grand Canyon, politely announcing themselves well in advance and giving everyone time to retreat.
Several years ago, Dr. Michael Lange, an Ocala optometric physician, mentioned that cataracts were slowly developing in both my eyes and would have to be dealt with sooner or later. Not an unusual phenomenon, said he, testifying that by age 75, half of all Americans are bestowed with the critters, making cataract surgery one of the most common operations in the country. Long a master of kicking the can down the road (not to mention having a natural aversion to seeing “scalpels” and “eyes” in the same sentence), I decided to wait until the problem got worse. Like many of you, I am in possession of a very accomodating Let’swaitahile Box, the sad fact being we are required to keep such containers on our Cosmic Conveyor Belts, which insist upon moving them forward at a steady pace until they can no longer be ignored.
Three years ago, I was sitting low in the stands at a Gainesville High School football game and I realized I was having trouble following the quarterback’s handoffs. Where did the ball go? Later, at Fenway Park, I lost track of fly balls hit deep to the outfield. Doctor Lange prescribed stronger eyeglasses but told me the end was nigh, and he was right. By late in 2016, I was having trouble seeing traffic lights from much of a distance. Siobhan, of course, questioned the wisdom of carrying on in this manner. “Well,” I told her, “I figure if there’s a passel of cars sitting there, the light is red. If nobody’s waiting, it must be green. I can see the amber ones pretty good.” Some people, apparently, will do anything to delay cataract surgery.
This year, Dr. Lange sold his practice and moved to The Villages. The new guy wasn’t nearly as accomodating. “These cataracts are mature,” he declared. “You need to do something now.” Because I am very finicky about men with sharp implements approaching my eyeballs, I got a raft of opinions as to who might best do the job. Everybody agreed it should be Dr. Seaborn Hunt III, whose grandfather must have been born on a boat. I went to his roomy offices, met the man, had the examination. The surgery was set for March 30, which seemed awfully soon, don’t you think? Nonsense, say all my friends who have either had the operation or know someone who did. “It’s a breeze.” Yeah, well, that’s what the captain of the Titanic said, too.
Logistical Nightmares
Now, you might think this cataract surgery business is a simple matter. You go in, the doctor comes out with an instrument which looks like a very small windshield scraper and he peels the sucker right off your eyeball. Ah, if only it were so. If you want to know the truth, I’ve been holding out for a spray that would dissolve the cataract and have enough sense to stop dissolving when it got to the eyeball. I’ve read that they’re working on this very thing in Russia, but I’d feel better if the experimenters were from Sweden, say, or Norway. Too late for me, in any case.
The first item of business is to have your eyes “measured,” whatever that means. In the process, I peered into about a dozen different machines. I particularly liked the one where they gave you a little button to push every time you saw a white light flash on the periphery. I figured I’d nailed almost all those buggers. The nurse only allowed me a rating of “pretty good.” She also told me my eyes were too dry, I’d have to go home, lubricate the hell out of them, and be remeasured. It worked out better the second time.
About these eyedrops. Everybody who has had cataract surgery will tell you the eyedrops are the worst part of the experience, which seems a little odd when you consider that knives are going into eyes. But I will have to admit, the eyedrops are a nuisance. The surgeon’s office gives you three different types of drops, two are steroids, one an antibiotic. You must also continue to use your own eyedrops, Systane in my case. Drops called Bromsite are applied twice a day, Besivance and Lotemax FOUR times, which also applies to the Systane. Applications of each must be five minutes from the dispensation of the previous drops, so it’s nice that iPhones have timers. This business goes on for four weeks after the surgery, so bring your lunch. Oh, and good news—somewhere along the line you start all over again with the second eye. I called my friend Torrey Johnson to commiserate. This didn’t work at all. Torrey was scheduled for hip replacement surgery in two days and the previous night his wife had fallen and broken her hip, reducing my problem to less than a trifle. I hate it when that happens.
The Cost Of Doing Busines
While Medicare and most insurance companies will cover cataract surgery, the patient has another option. For a fee of $2895 per eye, no pittance, Dr. Seaborn Hunt will provide you with the Waldorf-Astoria Spa treatment. In this one, you get a superior lens, which allows you to see very well at all distances, not to mention astigmatism repair, which means you will probably no longer need glasses or contacts. You also get to select one of the giant lollipops from the doctor’s candy bin. This, of course, is a great boon for people like me who are prone to misplace their glasses half-a-dozen times a day or scarcely have room to carry backups every place they go, which last June included the bottom of the Grand Canyon. There was absolutely no pressure by the medical staff to buy the more expensive package—they assured me I’d be fine with the basic number and all my friends who have undergone this operation reinforced that claim. Still, even though I don’t mind wearing glasses and might yet don some form of sunglasses, I liked the idea of not actually needing them. Everybody remembers that weekend in Pocatello when they smashed their lenses and the mall was closed. I decided to spring for the Waldorf treatment.
After everything else had been determined and put in place, we came to The Signing Of The Papers. Anyone who has ever bought a house is familiar with this ceremony in which four thousand sheets of paper contracts and acknowledgements are signed, stamped, exchanged, perhaps altered, signed again and sent directly to the Great Storage House of Legal Gobbledygook in Kankakee, Illinois, which is now 86 stories high and covers several city blocks. In these contracts, the client accepts that he is aware of the many dire outcomes which could result from this surgery, including “bleeding, infection, high eye pressure, a swollen or detached retina, droopy eyelid, double vision, displacement of the lens, injury to the cornea, iris, sclera, conjunctivae, pupil function, loss of vision, blindness or loss of an eye.” And, of course, our old friend, Death. And that’s not even taking into account the possibility your anesthesia provider is high on Calamus Root and inadvertently doubles your dose. Naturally, I signed all these papers immediately and without further ado. Society has trained me to accept that there is nothing a physican can do, short of using barn animals during surgery, which makes him liable for any harm done to me, the poor, woebegone patient. It’s still better than in other countries where the health provider might accidently shrink your head.
We’re Off To The Coxville Zoo
Tomorrow, March 30th is the surgical D-Day. At eight a.m., Siobhan will whisk me over to the Surgery Center of Mid-Florida near downtown Ocala for the procedure. At 8:45, the surgical staff will begin The Sharpening of the Knives. Promptly at nine, Dr. Seaborn Hunt will moor his yacht to the pier and march into the operating room as the stirring strains of Hail To The Chief fill the building. The clinical staff will then sprinkle holy water shipped directly from Lourdes onto the patient (me). If I am allowed to choose my favorite music for the procedure (as I am at the University of Florida Dermatology Clinic), I will select either I Can See Clearly Now, The Rain Is Gone or I’m Looking Over A Four-Leaf Clover, but definitely not The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.
And then, this: my right eye will be numbed either with eyedrops or with an injection around the eye (guess which one I’m rooting for). If I’m shrieking in panic, they will give me a medicine to calm me down. I will be awake, I’m told, during the surgery even though I’m getting anesthesia. Go figure. I may see light and movement but I will not see what the doctor is doing to my eye, and a big yippee-ki-yi for that.
The surgeon will enter into the eye via tiny incisions created by a laser or blade near the edge of my cornea, the clear covering on the front of the eye. He will use these incisions to reach the lens. Using very small instruments, he will break up the lens with the cataract and remove it. The new lens is then inserted in its place. Usually, the surgeon will not need to stitch the incisions closed, and I’m for that one. A shield will be placed over the eye to protect it while I heal. The staff will then dispatch me to a recovery room for fifteen minutes to a half-hour. Possibly champagne will be served but I’m not counting on it. I will then receive instructions on what I can and cannot do for the following week, which I foresee being not much.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is a pretty sly way to get to wear an eyepatch legitimately, and I’m not going to argue the point. I’m too busy composing pirate songs.
Yo-ho, yo-ho, it’s off to the opthalmic surgeon we go….
We’re bringing a loupe and a Playboy in braille,
For those opthalmic surgeons will now and then fail.
Let’s hope not this time.
See you later, figuratively at least….
