Eye hate to say eye told you so......

I've been neglecting my poor blog lately and it's been almost a month since my last post so I'm going to go back in time a bit to 31st August and to my last eye infirmary appointment.....

31st August 2010
Back at the Eye Infirmary for what I thought was going to be my last laser treatment for a while.....

As you will know if you read my post on my last visit to the Eye Infirmary, it didn't go too well and I wasn't happy with the doctor that I saw as she refused to give me the anaesthetic injection that I always usually have in my eye before the laser, which meant that I was in a fair amount of pain.  I mentioned in my post about my last appointment that I got the impression she was in a rush and couldn't really be bothered to do it and she just wanted to get me in and out as fast as possible.

As I said, I was expecting this appointment to be on my left eye as I was under the impression that my right eye had been finished for the time being at my previous appointment.....Wrong!!!

When the nurse did the pre-laser checks I made sure that I was definitely down to have the anaesthetic this time and she went and confirmed with the doctor that this was the case.  The doctor I had this time was a million times nicer than the one I had last time.  He really put me at ease and said he could see from my notes that I should have the anaesthetic injection because of the amount of laser I have had in the past (the more you have the more painful it becomes because of the scar tissue that has formed). 

Then it was time to have the anaesthetic injection....aaaaggghhh!!! Although having it is great in terms of making the laser treatment itself bearable it's not a nice procedure as it involves cutting the eyeball and injecting the anaesthetic into it....obviously I've never seen how it looks when they do it but Gareth has been there when they have done it and having a strong stomach he was able to watch what they do and then tell me all the gory details afterwards!!!!!

They put anaesthetic drops in first to numb your eyeball so you can't feel the cut/injection and all you can feel is an intense pressure pressing down on your eyeball.  The doctor actually had to make the incision twice this time because  he said the anaesthetic fluid wasn't going in properly....I felt like saying "too much information thanks" but was feeling too sick at the thought of it all to speak at that point!!!! The worst part was sitting up afterwards and feeling like I had tears rolling down my cheeks so I wiped my face and when I looked at my hand it was actually blood, not tears!!!!! Yuk!!! Having the injection also means that recovering from the laser takes longer and your eye is left in a bit of a mess for a few days.

Then the doctor said "Ok, so I'm lasering your right eye today....", I said "Errrr, no I had my right eye done last time so it should be my left today".  He then told me that last time the doctor had only done 200 laser burns which in his words was "peanuts" and "a waste of time".  As you can imagine I was not impressed as it now means I have to go back and have my left eye done on another day which means having more time out of work and more discomfort all because that doctor couldn't be bothered to do her job properly last time!!!!

Anyway, on with the show and on with the lasering.  This time even with the anaesthetic, it didn't numb all of the pain in certain parts of my eye.  In the end he told me had done 1359 laser burns which really put into perspective how few burns the previous doctor had done and that it really had been a waste of time!!!!

Off I went with a patch and a tube of cream to put in three times a day for a few days.  For a few hours it's fine because the anaesthetic is still working and you can't feel anything but once it starts to wear off the whole side of my face felt like I had done a few rounds with Mike Tyson!!!!

As you can see from the picture my eye didn't look too pretty afterwards and the anaesthetic means you get double vision as it wears off, it's bloody painful, gave me blurred vision for a few days and the redness took twice as long as it has in the past to disappear.   All in all it's not a nice procedure but it has to be done and I'm just grateful that there is a treatment available to save my sight.  Now I've got my pump I'm assured that I will need to have treatment less frequently as having more stable sugar levels will help to prevent further bleeds, so that's brilliant news  :o)

Having Retinopathy diagnosed a few years ago was terrifying and it was hard not to automatically think the worst and imagine going blind in the near future but luckily the laser can prevent that from happening, so given a choice between losing my sight and having a few days of soreness and redness every so often I know what I will choose every single time!!!  

I'm hoping I never have that particular doctor again for laser treatment but if I did I wouldn't be able to resist saying: "Eye hate to say eye told you so doctor, but you really should have given me the anaesthetic shouldn't you"  ;o)