On Wednesday, I went to the two-weeks checkup after my retina surgery. My left eye is now better than before the surgery and is some aspects even better than the right one. However, the horizontal lines are still wavy, and there are some blank spots in the middle. I told the surgeon that I do not want to do the right eye, because I won’t be able to last with my left eye only for a week. He agreed to wait till October to decide whether I will do the second one. I am most likely not going to come back because I have lots of issues with that office.

Since my eye doctor is still not open, I decided to go to the LensCrafters in the city, who made my last glasses. Their location works perfectly for me, and I had an excellent impression of their office in general when they replaced a lense in my glasses.

I scheduled an appointment with them for Thursday, which is now my in-office day. I spent there two and a half hours and I felt extremely guilty missing time at work, but the results are very promising. The doctor fitted me with bifocal glasses, and also I tried bifocal lenses for the first time. He gave me a week to get to adjust to them. That’s a new experience, and I am excited to be almost a normal person. I could not see so well for a long time; I can’t even recall since when.

Hopefully, this all will work out!

I am back home from the surgery; they said it went well, but I can’t tell until later, because I have a patch on the operated eye and will be blurry for a while in any case. Although it was local anesthesia with sedation, it feels more serious than with the cataract surgery, I am still dizzy, and I still feel like half of my head is numb. So most likely, that’s all for today, and I will post an update tomorrow after my post-surgical.

Yesterday, I went to the eye clinic for the second implant film removing (for the right eye). As with everything else, the right eye feels tons better than the left one. I feel like the procedure took less time, and less film was removed, and there are less floaters.  

Also, this time I asked whether I can wear contacts in between drops. Last time I agreed with the doctor that I do not want to take in and out my contacts four times a day, and I didn’t think it will be that restrictive to go for a total of two weeks with glasses only. But it turned out that in this case, I need to use two glasses at the same time way too often. Also, I realized that since one drop is in the morning, and one before bed, I only need to take the contact out twice, not four times:). So I switched back to contacts, and now I can tell that, indeed, I can see better after the film removal! 

What’s next. I am going to the retina doctor on Wednesday. Presumably, he will set up a date for surgery, which likely, will be soon. I asked for more details about that surgery. The nurse told me that in terms of restrictions, it will be similar to the cataract surgery, the same no bending-no lifting for a week, which, as I already know, is translated into two. 

Then, it will be the day after surgery follow up, and the second follow-up in a week. At some point, I need to finally get the right prescription for my glasses, but my regular eye doctor is still out. 

I hope it will all be over in a month because I am so tired of being in this or that surgery all the time! Theoretically, I still need to decide whether I want to do Lasic to correct residual near-sightedness, but I was on and off on whether I want to go for it. Also, this whole thing started when I tried to fix my double-vision, so I should return to where I’ve started :), because the double-vision is still there. And if I will go for all of the above, it might be not over until the end of the year!

Another friends and family update. For the past month, I was learning to wear contact lenses again. It was very different from my previous experience because my eyes are getting dry fast. First, I was freaking out to put the contacts in and to take them out, because the implants are so close to the surface. Also, I started from just two hours, as I was doing thirty-eight years ago, when I started wearing contacts for the first time.

Another problem was that I wore hard contacts for thirty-eight and a half years and the soft ones just for four months. I was having trouble with soft contacts for most of that time, and now, after four months interval, it was even more challenging. It’s only through the past week, that I became more confident in putting the contacts in and taking them off, and that my eyes are not so dry all the time. However, I still do not wear contacts for the whole day. The good part is that with implants, I am -4, not -14.

Yesterday, I went to my next post-surgical appointment. The goal was to check whether I need a removal of the film over my implants, and as expected, I need it. There will be two procedures, one next Thursday, and the second one a week later. After that, I should go to my regular eye doctor and hopefully will figure out a more accurate prescription. She should be open by then. As for my retina, it looks like the problems which were likely to emerge, emerged indeed. Again, not like ai did not know that my left eye is only half functioning, but it looks like fixing it is not an option but rather a necessity. I was scheduled to go to the retina doctor on July 9, but the surgeon asked it to be changed to ASAP, which will be six days after my second procedure. Then, I guess he will schedule surgery.

All of the above make my travel plans even more uncertain because now I need to plan around Brussels decisions, our internal regulations, my medical procedures, and Boris’. Fortunately, the airlines are extremely flexible now, and you can change your flight plans an unlimited number of times as close to the flight as possible. So we will see what the retina doctor will say, what EU will say, and whether there will be flights with less than twelve hours connections.