Preparing for surgery

Before we moved I had my first operation on the road to restoring my sight.

Dr Kate had given me the names of two surgeons in Sydney who she thought would be able to help. Within a month I had an appointment with both doctors.

When I met Dr Chang he explained that when the initial cataract surgery was done some remnants of the lens were left behind and over the years they had calcified into a large piece. This blockage was now affecting my vision. My specialist had been telling me over the last ten years that it was very difficult to see the optic nerve in my left eye because the tissue was so thick. There was a blockage, which had gone undiagnosed, even with this current drama. When I next saw Dr Kate and read the eye chart with the left eye, I could just make out the ‘a’ on the top of the chart, not anything else. With the right eye I could actually see the ‘a’ the ‘o’ and the ‘e’. That’s two lines!

A couple of weeks later I met Dr Con Petsoglou, and as with Dr Barrett in Perth, the minute we met I really liked him and knew he would fix this. He was amazed at how I had managed with so little sight for so long and had spoken with Dr Chang and they agreed that Dr Chang should do his procedure and when the eye had recovered from that surgery he would look at doing another transplant. Dr Con wanted me to wear a contact lens for a few months before he operated to give him an idea of what vision he would be able to achieve with another cornea transplant.

I was quite teary for most of the day after Dr Con’s appointment. At last something positive was going to happen and hopefully a little vision would come back after the first operation. It had been very difficult waiting for these appointments to see what the two surgeons had to say. My head was preparing to hear bad news but hoping for good news.

The optometrist Dr Kate recommended was very helpful and within weeks I was trying a new contact lens for my right eye. My optometrist put the lens in and told me to wander around the shops, have lunch and come back after a few hours to see how it felt. It felt wonderful. I phoned Peter and yelled into the phone, ‘I can see, I can see.’

I didn’t see well for very long. Soon it was time for my vitrectomy and Dr Chang didn’t want me to wear the contact lens again until a couple of weeks after my surgery. Even though the contact was for the other eye he did not want to risk any kind of infection.

When I rang Dr Chang’s office to find out if a date had been booked for me, I was told my surgery was booked in for the 13^th December! That was the day the removalists were coming. Perfect timing! While we were talking the booking officer felt sorry for me and found a cancellation – the next week. ‘Could you be in Sydney next Thursday which was the 23^rd November?’

‘Yes, I will be there,’ was my reply, having no idea how, but it would happen.

Before Christmas we had to move out of our house and find somewhere else to live for a couple of weeks, move into our new house and head up to Sydney to have some eye surgery. There is never a good time for all of this stuff but I wasn’t going to say no to the surgery.