When I was a callow youth, I settled my ambitions on becoming a musician. I use the word musician in a very loose sense, as I had no talent and no intention of ever learning an instrument, but I thought (incorrectly) that I could front things out by writing the lyrics for songs, pretending to be able to sing, and, most importantly, hanging out with proper musicians. A blog for another time, but the process of starting, and being in a band is a bizarre experience of creativity, relationship building and chance events. And one key factor in forming a band is the Selection Of A Name. It’s a weird process because you’re trying to choose something interesting, that’s going to tell people something about you, in a few words that are likely to bear no relationship to your creative output. But such is rock and roll.
I prepared for my musician/non-musician future throughout my youth, largely by focussing on the ideal name for a band. So much so that by the time I actually joined one, I had a list of 20 or 30 names, which in the event, were beyond embarrassing and never shared with anyone. By the time I joined my third band (by now a bit less callow and youthful), I was back to square one on the naming front, so resorted to the time honoured tradition of flicking through random books and hoping to settle on something new. I’d decided to start a band with a friend who had a guitar and a good working knowledge of early Buffalo Springfield, and before we knew it, had a few country infused indie songs and were ready for a recruitment drive. That was a process that didn’t really have an agreed end point, and we kept inviting people to join the band until we reached eight of us, and were limited only to the size of a rehearsal room. But that’s another blog. Anyway, just ahead of recruitment, we needed a name, which needed to be sourced from the books owned by me or my friend.
At which point, we’re edging precariously close to the point of this blog. Because one evening, we were flicking through some old books, and my friend showed me an old medical reference book from the 50’s. In it was a description of a procedure called ‘Killian’s Eye’, together with a line drawing of how a particular incision on the eye took place. Just looking at the drawing made me feel quite ill. Thinking about it 40 years later still makes me a bit queasy. So, given that it could have that effect, ‘Killian’s Eye’ was the new name for the band. We changed our name about two weeks later, but again, that’s another blog.
And I mention that whole ‘feeling queasy at the memory of a line drawing of an eye operation’ thing, because almost everyone I know turns an unpleasant shade of green when you mention eye surgery. And, funnily enough, it was exactly that feeling that I had a few weeks ago after a visit to the optician. I’d noticed a. bit of blurring when I tried to use a computer, then found that if I completely closed my left eye then the world just turned into a set of vague shapes. It was quite disturbing really, so I headed off to the opticians a worried man. And after an hour of testing and talking, I worried for a different reason. Firstly, I had cataracts, which would require the 2025 version of some sort of Killian op, but also because it was cataracts. I knew that they were relatively straightforward to resolve, but weren’t they what old people get? My 91 year old mother, for example, was (and is) currently waiting for a cataract op. I asked about that at the opticians. Óh no, we get really quite young people in with cataracts’. Remarkably unconvincing.
And so the process of getting my eyes back on track began. Part of the point of this blog is to shout about what a fantastic process it was, and let’s start by showing some stupendous NHS efficiency. I’m going to do this based on working days:
- Day 1 – eye test at optician
- Day 2 – checked that GP had received referral and got an appointment for the next day
- Day 3 – saw the GP, who referred me to eye clinic
- Day 5 – received a letter for eye clinic for assessment on day 7
- Day 7 – cataract assessment from optometrist (both eyes) and appointment booked for:
- Day 9 – cataract removed from right eye
- Day 20 – cataract removed from right eye
So, that’s six days from GP to surgery. And an enforced two weeks between right eye and left eye. The conversation with the optometrist went a bit like this:
- You’ve got a fast growing cataract in your right eye and another in your left. So we’ll need to take them both out, starting with the right one.
- Yikes, that sounds nasty, how long will I have to wait to have them removed?
- I’m sorry, but the soonest we can fit you in is the day after tomorrow
Amazing stuff, and with the huge advantage that I didn’t have time to worry about the actual op at all. And to avoid getting cold feet, I studiously avoided any information on how cataracts were removed until the day of the procedure, thinking that the less I knew, the better it would be. And in the event, I really shouldn’t have worried. I had to put some dilation drops in to my eye before I walked to the surgery, met a nurse who put some anaesthetic drops in, and made sure they had the correct eye, before taking me to meet the surgeon, who measured my eye so that the right sized lens would be put in place, then met the nurse who explained that she’d be holding my hand, and that if I at any time felt that I was going to cough or sneeze, to squeeze immediately. Something about that being bad news if it happened when the scalpel was making an incision. Then taken into the operating room, to meet more nurses and the surgeon again, a clamp put on the eye to stop blinking, a cover over the rest of my face, some drops that made sure all I could see were outline lights, then ten minutes of trying not to think what was going on and not squeezing my new friend’s hand, just noticing the odd sensation of touch, rather than pain, and watching the lights move, then the surgeon saying ‘all done’, clamps and cover removed, a clear plastic patch over the eye, which I could see perfectly through, back to the first nurse for some dos and don’ts for the next few weeks, then home. The whole thing took about forty minutes from arrival to leaving, and of that, there was about fifteen minutes in the operating room. And just in case any of us thought that was a lucky break, back two weeks later for the other eye, which took almost the same amount of time, and if anything, caused a bit less discomfort. It’s just staggering.
Now all of this has been done, I’ve allowed myself to have a look at what actually happened. The queasy feeling is still there when you read up on it, but it’s as nothing if you look at what used to happen before a process called phacoemulsification came in around in the 1990s. Before then, cataract surgery would leave you in hospital for about 10 days; the op would need a general anaesthetic, and there’d be months of convalescence afterwards. And we have Charles Kelman to thanks for phacoemulsification – he developed the process of blasting away the cataract through a small incision using a laser after talking to a dentist about a tool being used for laser dental treatment. That was in the mid-1960s, so fairly soon afterwards, everything literally started looking a bit rosier for people with cataracts.
About that rosier stuff. Having a cataract is a bit like seeing the world through a glass of milk, or a grubby net curtain, but it happens quite gradually, so you don’t really notice the deterioration. But when it’s taken away, everything comes back immediately. For me, it wasn’t just the blurring that went, but my sight over distance was much better, I could see the computer properly, and I saw certain colours, blues and greens particularly, really vividly.
There is, of course, always a downside. In this case, it’s about what you have to do and not do after the op. Lots of steroid eyedrops for the following four weeks, which aren’t really a problem once you get used to the technique and a bit of stinging. But then there’s quite a few things that you can’t do – mainly any exercise that would elevate the pulse, and increase pressure in the eye, as that could put the recovery/repair back. So that’s bending over, lifting anything and any active exercise. Definitely no swimming, and no running or cycling or any other sport. This is quite a big deal for me, because I had both eyes done, so that’s no exercise for six weeks, and I’m counting the days before I can go back. I’ve never had that much time away from exercise before, and I’d be climbing the walls if that was allowed, tee hee. The list of do’s and don’ts confirmed some of my initial ‘aren’t cataracts something that much older people have done?’ thoughts. For example, it talks about active sports, but then specifically says that this includes bowls and golf. It then says that patients should avoid sex for two weeks, which must presuppose that a gentle game of bowls is twice active as having sex. Now, I’ve only played bowls twice in my life, but…
You can finish that last sentence off for yourself. As I write, I’m two weeks and three days away from being able to go for a run, so at least that’s over half way. And I suppose only three days before making myself available for, well, a bit of biblical knowledge. As long as it’s no more enthusiastic than half a game of bowls.
The Emu 