Cataract Surgery: "Don't Worry! Be Happy!"
[My Testimony,…read moreJune 19, 2024]
When the smiling dentist coming at you with the drill says, "Don't worry!"
You: "Easy for you to say! You're on the other side of the drill!"
When the smiling surgeon reassures you about cataract surgery says: "Don't worry!"
You: "Easy for you to say! You're on the other side of the scalpel!"
Yesterday, Dr. Henry and his surgical team provided all kinds of encouragement, and the anesthesiologist, Dr. "C" (as she called herself), gave very fine, graphical, and believable examples of the few sensations that I actually WOULD be feeling.
But, no matter what encouraging words I heard and read about yesterday's cataract surgery, as I was being prepped for it while lying on my gurney - no matter WHAT I was telling my emotions, my emotions kept whispering back, "But, how do you know what is going to happen?!" The fear of the unknown does not like to listen to statistically based comforts.
Situations like this tend to intensify one's prayer life - if one has someone to pray to! Fortunately, I do, and it sure helped. But I also wanted to reassure anyone reading this little testimony that those comforting words that came from my surgeon, his team, and his pamphlets really ARE true!
I not only felt no pain; I didn't feel or see a THING! No scalpels, no thumbs!
The drops and gel that they apply make the vision in your affected eye so blurred and anesthetized that you see no details of any kind, and feel very few sensations of any kind. They put a covering over your face, so that your good eye sees nothing at all. Then they open a little opening in the covering to expose that little "patient." That eye just "sees" some dull colored background light with no details whatsoever. During the entire procedure, I "saw" absolutely nothing: no scalpel, no thumb! I also "felt" absolutely nothing. This went on for what seemed like ten or fifteen minutes; I was still waiting for something to start when they announced that it was finished!
That was it. Over the years, even though I have spent most of my days working on my laptop, that eye had become worthless for reading anything. But, when I woke up this morning my "new" eye, which had been the far worse of the two, saw things in better detail than the formerly good eye! And with my surgically corrected new eye, that eye can read what I am now typing here with no glasses at all! Yesterday, even with glasses that uncorrectable left eye saw nothing that I had read or written but a black blur! I told Dr. Henry this morning that I feel like a kid at Christmas eve who went to bed hoping to get a jackknife and being given a new pony!
So, "don't worry, and be happy!" You are in good hands!
And thank YOU, Doctor Henry, you and your marvelous team!
In a few more weeks you get to work on my RIGHT eye!
Reed Merino, M.Div. (age 83)
ReedMerino@gmail.com