Nothing like it

After a restless night when I finally fell asleep for a few hours early in the morning, I went back to the doctor the next day. He wanted to check on whether the surgery was taking, and it appeared to be.

The technician ripped the tape off my closed eye, checked its pressure, which was okay, and held up various fingers for me to count.  I could see out of my affected eye, which was encouraging because the afternoon before, when I was wheeled into surgery, about 7/8ths of the vision was occluded in that eye.  Then the doctor came in and explained the surgery which he said had inserted a gas bubble into my eye to replace the vitreous humor and the bubble would dissolve over time as it was replaced by eye fluid during the healing process, and my vision should gradually improve as that occurred.

We discussed my discomfort during surgery the night before.  I don't think he appreciated me as a surgical patient because when he had cut into my eye I was awake and aware and I reacted badly, moving my head in response to the pain ("Lie still!  No talking!"), which I felt palpably, and I moaned softly as he worked, which allayed the incredible anxiety I felt as a burning sliver of metal was jabbed into my eye and thrust about (at least, that's what it felt like).

The doctor was reassuring although he considered the job incomplete because despite repairing the three tears in the retina with his laser, he hadn't fully cemented to his satisfaction the background or "wallpaper" as he called it because I was a moving too much.  But he cited the 90-95% success rate with the procedure as he assured me it was going to be an onerous recovery, and he said he would see me in a week.  Oh what a visit that would turn out to be!