Sight for sore eyes
Wednesday morning and I find myself being driven to the Northcliff eye clinic by one of my closest friends. I am uncharacteristically silent and this time there is no wearing away of the carpet on the passenger side of the car. My friend drives well - a little too well because in no time at all we have arrived and I am once again being assisted out of the car. Together we climb the many, many, many stairs to Reception. Has it ever occurred to these people to build an eye clinic on one level?
I have been having visions of Arnold Schwarzeknickers with one large eyeball exposed - part man and part machine. I strenuously deny that I am scared but I think the vibrating of my limbs might give me away. I explain this away by saying to anyone who will listen "I haven't eaten since yesterday." There are sympathetic looks from the other patients. How do I know they were giving me sympathetic looks considering my bat status? I have a vivid imagination!
I am booked in and a pink and a white plastic bracelet are placed on my wrist. I am reminded of the bracelet placed on my newborn children's wrists and suddenly feel terribly small. The bracelets are there to tell them who I am and what is being done to me. I am comforted to note that they are placed on my right arm - the same side as the eye that is to be operated on.
After a weighing in and a thousand seemingly irrelevant questions I am given a designer gown and baggy pants in a charming shade of teal to don. Thank heavens I am not given the designer underwear to match! I am also given a pair of very interesting tissue paper slippers and told to remove every stitch of jewellery. Since I haven't had access to the crown jewels in quite some time, this doesn't take me long. I am ready to climb onto the hospital bed but before I do this I cheerfully introduce myself to the other occupants of the room. All respond but the person in the bed on my left. It takes me a while to establish that there is no person on this bed.
I am the youngest of all the patients in this room and all of us are here for the same operation. To my right there is a charming Irish lady with a lovely lilt to her voice and she is reading a book - READING A BOOK? "How do you do that?" I ask in wonderment, thinking maybe she has managed to find a special edition large print.
"Oh, Oive had me one eye done already. They're doing me other one now"
"Oh wow! You mean this operation actually works?" I ask, hope starting to build.
"Oh yes me dear. It works like a charm!"
After saying goodbye to the friend that delivered me to the clinic and hearing her solemn promise to fetch me later on, I fire off a hundred questions at the poor Irish lady and establish that the operation is relatively routine and that the results are usually excellent.
"You may only need glasses for reading or driving," she assures me soothingly. I am not completely appeased. I have had perfect 20/20 vision my entire life and this blind state is something new to me. I had no idea how much I used my eyes until I lost my vision. The world had become such a different place without sight.
Nurses arrive with a wheelchair and fetch one of the elderly ladies in one of the other beds. Another nurse stands at the foot of my bed and checks my clipboard. I can't be sure she was doing this but that is what I imagine. Then I hear the sweet aged voice from the bed across from me.
"Nurse, nurse, that lady they just wheeled off is awake!"
"She is being taken to surgery and they will put her on a drip up there dear. Don't you worry." the nurse replies patiently.
"But she is WIDE AWAKE nurse!"
"Not for long dear."
The nurse leaves the room and I feel the tangible fear in the sweet old lady asking the questions. I reassure her with confidence I don't feel that everything will be ok.
"My name is Chanti. What's your name?" I asked in the direction of the voice.
"Mrs. Applebee. Shunteee, hmmm that's a lovely name. Is it Indian?"
"No, it's my nickname. My real name is Chantal."
"You're such a baby. What in heaven's name gave you cataracts?" she asks quizzically and I try to explain without giving too much information. I am still not certain how I could have had perfect eyesight up until recently and then suddenly wake up in a cloud.
"Ready, Mrs. Applebee?" a nurse asks briskly but cheerfully.
"Oh dear is it my turn? ...b-bbbut I am still awake?"
"They're going to put a drip up when you get upstairs dear."
"B-bbbut I am not even sleepy!"
"You will be soon."
"See you later" I shout in the direction of the wheelchair trundling off.
"I ho-ope so..." she quips
I discover the name of the owner of the lovely Irish voice is Bernadette. "Call me Bernie" she insists. We joke and laugh raucously while waiting, eliciting a comment from one of the other patients: "What have you two been given? I want some!" By the time the nurses arrive to fetch me, the entire ward is in fits of laughter.
I am taken into a lift and then out into yet another waiting area where I am placed on a stretcher type bed. The anaesthetist puts up the drip and explains to me about what I can expect. It doesn't help and the Arnie images only become more defined. I am, however, listening intently - determined to be a good patient and then...
"Doctor, I am still awaaaake!"
She is in the stretcher next to me.
"Hello Mrs. Applebee. Relax I'm here too."
"I'm so glad. I'm terribly worried that I am going to be awake during this operation. I don't want to see what they are doing."
I reach out for her hand and pat it gently.
"You're so cold Mrs. Applebee. Do you feel cold?"
"I'm frozen solid. They're going to have to chip ice away to get to me soon."
I call for blankets and she is made comfortable. I am still shivering, but not from cold.
Very soon attendants arrive to collect Mrs. Applebee to go into theatre. Her time has come. They prise her fingers from mine and I hear the stretcher bed being pushed rapidly down the passage with the fading sound of her voice...
"I'm still awaaaaaake....."
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