I've always privately dreaded it when a friend or acquaintance accosted me to tell me all about his or her surgery. I would politely listen, but also vow to myself that I'll never ever do that
. Now, I get it. It's a big big deal, and they are usually a) exhilarated about the outcome, or b) greatly relieved that a serious medical problem was dealt with – or both. So, let me tell you about my surgery…
Yesterday, I had cataract surgery on my left eye. So far, one day later, it seems like all went well. I can already see MUCH BETTER than before, and that's with the other eye yet to be fixed until a month or so goes by. These days, cataract surgery is a commonly done procedure. So why am I so happy?
For at least six years, I've suffered from an auto-immune eye inflammation, called
idopathic scleritis (that's Greek for a sore owie of the eye of unknown cause). My immune system decided, on its own, to attack my left eye as a foreign invader. My right eye is apparently a regular guy, but look out for that left eye. When the inflammation was going full on, my left eye was bright red like a Christmas tree ornament. (People avoided standing near me on elevators.)
The treatment is similar to that for rheumatoid arthritis – suppress the immune system with drugs like prednisone and methotrexate, on a continuous basis. One of the many unwanted side effects of prednisone is the early development of cataracts. As a result, I've rapidly gotten bad cataracts in the past several years. Most older people do get cataracts, but they develop them very gradually over a decade or two. I was by far the youngest patient in the waiting room yesterday as I waited my turn for surgery.
Because my eye doctors (I have 2 plus the surgeon) were afraid that surgery might activate my suppressed inflammation, I had to start taking high-dose prednisone as a precaution a few days before surgery. Prednisone makes me hyper and sleepless, and I was already a bit anxious about the surgery. Yesterday was surgery, and this morning I went back to the eye surgeon's office for a day +1 check. Everything looks good, no inflammation, and I can already see much better!
So far, I have avoided accosting strangers on the street to tell them my news. But you, dear readers are hardly strangers
.
