Hi, My name is John. I'm 59 years old, and the last time I went to the eye Dr., he told me that I needed to have cataracts removed. I had noticed a gradual decrease in my ability to see in my right eye. At first I thought it was just because my eyes were tired in the morning, so I would try to rub the sleep out of them, but to no avail. They eye Dr. used an instrument called an Opti-Map to take a picture of the inside of my eye ball, at which time about a year ago, he told me that I had a cataract. He said then that I could wait awhile, as long as my left eye was OK and it wasn't "interfering with my quality of life." Last appointment, he could not even see the inside of my right eye anymore from the Opti-Map picture, and he strongly encouraged me to get this procedure done, and referred my to an eye surgeon in Phillipsburg, New Jersery.
Before surgery, I had to have an examination by the eye surgeon to make sure that I was a good candidate for the surgery. Once he had determined that I was, then I had a pre-surgery examination where they gave me forms for a physical by my family Dr., other paperwork explaining the operation, and prescriptions for three different kinds of antibacterial eye-drops, and they set up the appointments for the surgery, the day after appointment, and the second follow-up appointment.
So, I picked up my prescriptions for Lotemax, Bromday, and Ofloxacin,and I started putting the eye drops in my eyes two days before the surgery. (I'm sure every eye surgeon doesn't necessarily use exactly the same drops, but these were what mine prescribed). I had to put two kinds of eye drops in at breakfast time and at bed time, (waiting 5 minutes in between the two) and one of them, I had to also put in at lunch time and dinner time. So, all in all not too bad, except that I had to have someone else put the drops in most of the time, because my vision in my right eye had become so bad, that I couldn't even tell where the tip of the eyed drop bottle was in relationship to my eye. So, last step before my bed time eye drops the night before the surgery was to shower and wash my hair with anti-bacterial soap and shampoo. Also, nothing to eat or drink after 11:00 PM the night before.
The surgery center said I could call between 1:30 PM and 3:00 PM to get my arrival time for the day of surgery. So, I called and they told me to come at 7:15 AM. Someone has to be the driver, because the day of surgery, and at least until your day-after follow-up appointment, you can not drive yourself.
Of course, I was a bit anxious and I didn't really sleep too well the night before my surgery. Everyone I talked to that had this kind of procedure done told me that it was painless and nothing to be nervous about, but I was still anxious about having someone doing a surgical procedure on my eye.
