15 09 2021

  - An attempt to surmount this eye implant experience... notes from my notebook. Not recommend reading for the sensitive.

The previous day spent hanging about, fighting off poems about torture (blade/sharp/clean/eye)

Eventually - not allowed to eat or drink - got to hospital early for 3.00 appointment. Handed my phone to Bob - his is a UK number and unacceptable He has to be called to get me when I'm done. Have to use my paper pass sanitaire at the doorkeepers post. 

Admitted at reception desk and sent to next floor, following blue dots on wall. Three other women also in waiting room. I'm called first - paper work, labels, identity label in plastic sheath on wrist - follow nurse to changing rooms. Tout nu. All in locker. Given paper shoes, knickers, charlotte. Cloth gown. Mine won't close. Turns out not to be my fault, it's broken.

Group of three other (different) women. We sit in seperate cubicles but I'm aware of them. Nurses give eye drops over two hours. Theres a mirror in the cubicle and I can see the pupil spreading over my face... there is also a poster explaining whats going to happen. I don't know why I didn't research this. Just assumed that some grot is going to be scraped off my eye. Seems that actually bits of my eye are being replaced by a plastic lens implant. Why didn't I know this??

Tierd, didn't sleep the previous night. Doze. Hours pass, two, I asked a nurse the time. Don't understand her and she writes in biro on her palm, removes it with chemical cleaner. The lady next to me is cold and complains, gets a silver and gold foil blanket - I bags one too but remain cold.

I'm called and put in a wheelchair. Young mixed-race driver clearly expert; drives very fast with a deep knowledge of the spaces available. He's worked in the hospital for two years. He moves me onto a bed on wheels with removable sides and I'm parked up in a ward next to another woman. He goes. Nurse arrives. Chats. Another nurse comes, they chat. Time distended. Someone else is wheeled in and then leaves.

A whole hospital of men and women, fully gowned, come streaming past - going home - chattering. Happy there have been no problems. They are like a flock of  blue exotic birds floating past. A ballet.

I'm told, there has been a delay. More drops.

A boss man appears; asks my name, checks my writ tag, looks me up on a clipboard, disappears without comment.

Comes back, chatting with nurse. No point in taking a holiday you can't go anywhere. He's had covid it was bad flu for 2 weeks. They talk over me. I force myself into their conversation and they allow me into their talk - as he twists a torniquet round my arm and coats my hand with a transluscent gold liquid that stains. He drives a line into my vein. Goes. Nurse tapes the line in. Doze some more. More eye drops. Sticky patches for heart monitoring put on skin.

Taken off trolley and walk slowly on nurses arm. Climb onto another bed.  There are two in the room, one occupied.

Dr E talks and I know him by his voice - masked and hatted and gowned, completly unrecognisible visually.

They take my blood pressure, put clips on the three heart monitors, pour something into the tube wired  into my hand.

Lights. Primary colours, swimming, changing. Pain. That hurts. Oh, that hurts? It stops hurting. Something slides, something moves, something slides. Sometimes the doctors hand shades the light and I'm grateful, it seems a tender act.

He tapes a raised pad over the eye and says he'll see me tomorrow in Limoux at 9.30. I ask him to write that down somewhere. Yellow post-it stuck to my blanket.

Wheeled to another room and given coffee!! Coffee... and a bag containing salad (cucumber, cheese, tomato all chopped v small) apple puree with some cream, a brioche. Bliss!

I hear Bobs voice. They let me see him, I hug his arm and woukd have cried if I could. They take him away.

After I've eaten I'm wheelchaired to the locker room and dress, shakily. Bob takes me to the car.

****

Think, thank God thats over; but of course its only just begining. Hard to sleep with patch. Dr E takes it off the next morning and all is well and YES, colours, fantastic! Embarrased to catch myself reaching out to touch his dark violet internally-lit clothes - stopped just in time. He's laughing, a response he's used to.

Strapping on the patch every night with sticky tape gives my eye-socket bruises and disrupts my sleep. Try various tricks. Clearly it must be protected. Can't move head at night, none of the customary curling up. Ratty with lack of sleep. 

Managing the eye drops turns out to be a challenge. Three,  three times a day. Easy, but there has to be 15 mins between them so a certain amount of attention has to be paid. And various eyes, not both at once.

And as the day for eye two gets nearer, I'm ridiculously frightened. Odd, since I know what happens, but convinced something will go wrong.

******

The day dawns. Due in at 2.00 and find I have time for coffee and a croissant early. Have Christopher Hamiels lovely book with me - Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts - absorbing and comforting. In  the waiting room I am the only woman.  I'm called quickly. Same rigmarole with paperwork, another plastic bracelet in case anyone forgets who I claim to be. 

Back to strip ; why is a charlotte called a charlotte? It like a culotte. Charlotte, culotte. The charlotte is a hair net. Culotte are knickers.  Oh well...

Back to cubicle. All men waiting, I'm embarassed for them, naked but for their gowns. Old legs. They are shifty, what I see of them. I'm called quickly after the endless eye drops. Very uneasy. Same process as with the first but without the heart monitor sticky things. Different anesthetist - at least this one introduces himsef and says what he's doing instead of talking over me - before talking over me.

It's all taking too long and I don't want to be here. When I'm wheeled into the operating space I realise the anesthetist isn't there. Do they know I'm not under? Not full of what HH called The Good Stuff?? Dr E positions my head. Pushes a microphone by my mouth. Puts a clip on my second finger which proceeds to beep in time with my heart. A large cuff on the other arm which inflates, deflates.

He's playing rather anodyne music, jazz/pop/ beat driven boring. He and the nurse keep up a running conversation which I can't follow. Not enough drugs! I want to shout - then see the anesthetist. Smile with all I've got visible to thank him. But still too awake... my neck and shoulders are hurting I can feel my bones, see them like an xray but they are brown. I'm clenching and unclenching my hands, waving the arm with the cuff. Can't interupt their conversation. Pray.

Don't move! Dr E shouts. It hurts, I shout back. You mustn't move he shouts. I hear him mutter and something is removed, something replaces it. Is it over? I hear my voice. Not yet. Is it over yet? Yes.

*******

I ask for extra coffee. The men in recovery are impressed I can speak French. Everyone has stories about the idle and arrogant English. We are all on eye two and rather blaise now. Not dead, not brain damaged. Just in pain but bearable.

One man wears a red tshirt saying the most beautiful thing about me is my tractor. We all smile.

*******

Next day appointment at 10.30 and I've already taken off the bandage by the time we get to Dr E's surgery. No appreciable change in eyesight yet, just less tobacco-tint yellow. He greets me with an apology! Another patient wasn't given enough anesthetic and he was sorry, realising a bit late that that was why I moved. He's happy with the eye though and says on the plus side I'II recover quicker.

More prescriptions for more drops, some ideas about patch management. It's impossible to manage two, he says, so I can give up on the first. Seems unlikely I think and show him a way to insert plastic patches into a soft sleep mask Ive brought with me for his inspection. Great idea, he says.

********

Nowadays I sleep in my sunglasses. It's possible and the best option. Only another week and I should be, well, whatever I'm going to be.