Surgery Today

This time it appears the hospital has been giving me wrong info all week. The surgery is at 3 pm. Good thing I didn't eat breakfast as I had planned to do! Time to go set up all the pillows and maybe even the chair. Photos of pillow arrangements to follow...

In Brielle

I make a pretty good statue, huh!

POSTPONED!!!

As the Robert Burns poem goes---"The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft aglay"

Well all my plans went south when I got a call about an hour before heading out to the hospital that the good doctor had the flu and didn't think he should do the surgery on the 8th. I was nonplussed to say the least. Lots of effort went into making all the arrangements. But I certainly want the surgeon to be in top form for try number 3 so it's back to work and all the normal bits of life until April 30.

The good news is that camping for Laura's birthday is going to be much easier!!!

Psyching Up

My toes and fingers are pretty. My tummy is full of yummy pizza. I tied up many of the loose ends at work, even managed to get approval for $10k for student assistants. So now I should be able to relax and enjoy the evening, maybe sleep in and get errands done in the morning (with Laura's assistance). Wish me luck!

Sunday Gloomy Sunday

There are still a large number of loose ends that need to be done before Tuesday but I have lost heart. Can't see very well, can't fake a better mood, finding myself fearful of not ever getting better sight out of this eye. I need a good-deeds fairy to come through and clear out the cobwebs from my brain!

Photos from Holland are online

I have eight albums of photos from the trip to The Netherlands on my Picasa Web Album.

Getting Ready

I thought I was efficiently getting prepared for face-down last time when I ordered the full suite of vitrectomy supplies from VitrectomySolutions.com. They were very helpful, shipped all of it in a timely fashion, we got it all set up. We even moved a twin bed into the family room so I could sleep any time without disturbing others. I had my iPod, my mirror for the TV, a radio with remote controls, a speaker phone. Nothing was going to faze me. But little did I know that none of the equipment would provide comfort in any extended way once my face had been pointed downward long enough for all the sinus cavities to fill up! So this time I was armed with questions when I went for the pre-op physical, such as what decongestants are safe (sudafed is fine the doctor said, even with my borderline hypertension), would an antihistamine help (yes, says the kind doctor again, as long as the ophthalmologist oks it), and is there a muscle relaxer that might knock me out enough to really sleep.(Maybe) Now the pharmaceutics are better prepared at least.

Next I went on a field trip to a medical supply place locally that handles vitrectomy face-down equipment (and massage creams, as the face-down stuff is really just massage table stuff). There I met the medical supply dominatrix queen--no, none of it is comfortable--yes, I do sell foam pads covered with nasty hard naugahyde--you, you scummy person with a macular hole, prepare to be miserable. So a pox on her house. May she someday have to use her own equipment for months! We're off to Bed Bath and Beyond on a pillow scavenger hunt. Came out of there with
2 Contour® Memory Foam Leg Pillows.

2 Therapedic™ Memory Touch Neck Pillows

1 Symphony Pillow by Tempur-Pedic®

I pondered whether to get a body pillow but was holding out for a large u-shaped pillow I had seen in the skymall catalog on the way back from Holland. Found it the next day online and it is headed for Sunnyvale now.

All this should make it possible to build a nest in the bed, but in order to sit comfortably, I still needed to deal with the massage chair. Luckily, the folks at Vitrectomy Solutions had all my insurance and shipping info on file so a quick call to them was enough to start the shipping process for the seated solution. They will also ship me the magic mirror. Last time it was the most important part of the system, because I could force myself to keep my nose pointed into it even while sitting in the arm chair.

What is the Whole Face-Down Time Gonna Be Like?

I should have I should have I should have written about this before, like maybe the FIRST time I found out there was such a thing as a vitrectomy and that recovery would involve keeping one's nose pointed to the ground. But no, not so smart. So VxOne slid past any documentation when it happened last October. Then VxTwo didn't seen to be such a big deal because there was going to be no face-down component. Wrong again. Thus there is no documentation of what it felt like to have silicon oil in the eye, completely blurry vision, brain aches. Now VxThree is coming right up, face-down again, so I feel compelled, even obligated to chronicle the fun and games.