Minor Surgery

I have heard "minor surgery" defined as surgery that someone else is having.  So by that definition I have never had minor surgery.  Besides which, there are no bragging rights in minor surgery anyway so for the purposes of this blog let's suffice it to say that I have had many major surgeries.   Since my childhood, when the hospitals were lit by candlelight and doctors still made house calls (one of those statements is actually true), I have had eight surgeries.  I won't bore you with all the details, because if I did then I would have to listen to all of YOUR surgery stories (minor surgeries of course), but suffice it to say that five of the eight involved the removal of nasal polyps.  Apparently I am very good at growing them, to be harvested at a later date, but enough of that.  My latest two surgeries had to do with the eyes...cataract surgery.

First things first; the word is cataract, not catarac.  If you have had this surgery and still cannot pronounce the word correctly, it does not count as a surgery for you (minor surgery of course) and you therefore lose all rights to talk about it.  I just survived my second cataract surgery and I am thankful for one thing - that I am not a mother, because if I were I would still have two more eyes to go.  Anyone who has been a child and was caught doing something wrong by your mother while her head was turned knows exactly what I am talking about.

I spoke to a number of different people about cataract surgery and most of their responses were something like "it's no problem, 10 minutes and you're done".  Technically that is true, but since they all had minor surgery I knew they could not relate to what I was about to go through...major surgery, twice!  The Cliff Notes version of the operation is to remove the lens in your eye and replace it with another lens which will allow you to see better.  Over three million of these minor surgeries are done annually with only two this year considered to be major surgery, both of which were mine.

If you decide to have this minor surgery performed, know this...eye drops will take over your world beginning three days prior to surgery and a month afterwards.  In my case I had three different eye drops, one to be taken once a day, one three times a day and one four times a day.  And, if you have both eyes done within two weeks of each other as I did, you can double the eye drop schedule.  I am currently patenting a hat which when worn will apply eye drops at a predetermined time to a predetermined eye.  So far all it does is spray you in the face, which is fine as long as you have only one eye open and your mouth shut, which, for many people, is nearly impossible (the mouth shut part...you know who you are).

I am going to end this blog for the evening until tomorrow, because my left eye is still dilated after my latest major surgery and thus I cannot tell if the surgery worked or if the doctor just needed a new Lamborghini.

Back again, eye no longer dilated...which is good because having only one eye dilated, a ton of people came up to me asking if I had a traumatic brain injury.  I told them no worse than normal - they left me alone after that.  Anyway, I can see a little better out of my eye, as opposed to, oh I don't know, seeing a little better out of my elbow.  So my suggestion to you if you ever need cataract surgery is to get used to using the eye drops.  I think the doctor told me if I didn't use them that my eyes would explode, or something like that.  And of course you have nothing to be worried about, seeing as how you will only be having minor surgery.