REFLECTIONS ON GOING THROUGH A HURRICANE OF PAIN AFTER EYE SURGERY Part Two
Going through the surgery was a loving, uplifting and enjoyable experience until the pain medication wore off
THE DAWNING LIGHT, Volume 7, Issue Number 443
Monday, September 4, 2023
Still Mountain Chronicles Section Number 30
Photo Credits: Unsplash
REFLECTIONS ON GOING THROUGH A HURRICANE OF PAIN AFTER EYE SURGERY—Part Two
Going through the surgery was a loving, uplifting and enjoyable experience until the pain medication wore off
GOING THROUGH THE SURGERY WAS LIKE BEING ON A CARNIVAL RIDE
The day of my first surgery finally arrived, after being out in the future for months.
I recognized that it was going to be a day of extraordinary blessings, though I didn’t know what they were, as everything about this experience was going to be breaking new ground.
But I could feel the familiar rush of good and positive feelings that portend a great day ahead from the moment Ani woke me up at 4:30 am.
It was still dark outside and peaceful. We got up this early so we would not have to rush around to get ready, and make sure we got to the hospital on time.
The surgery was scheduled for 6:30 am, which meant I would be the first one done that day. I have heard this is the best of time because the surgeon and staff are rested and focused, another sign of a blessed day.
We arrived at the Outpatient Surgery Pavilion of the hospital on time. A nurse was already waiting for me and said no one was allowed to come in with me, and that Ani could come back in about two and half hours.
She said they would call her when it was over, and that Ani would need to have our car waiting and ready by the clinic’s side door to pick me up.
The nurse whisked me away to an examination room and told me to change into a hospital gown while she waited beyond the closed curtains.
She had me sit on a gurney, the same one that would be my chariot to the operating room later, while she and another nurse asked a long list of questions about my health, medications and whether or not I have this or that condition.
I realized that because I could honestly answer no I don’t have to take medications, or have allergies or diabetes or heart condition, that I don’t drink or smoke or suffer from a long list of conditions how fortunate I am to be basically healthy.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
This added to my rising sense of well being.
One of the nurses but on a blood pressure monitor and hooked me up to an IV line. “This is mostly to keep you hydrated, but later we will use it to deliver medications” she said, “to reduce pain and keep you relaxed.”
I commented on everything cheerfully and said how grateful I was to have this once in a lifetime opportunity to have this experience.
The nurses appreciated my being cheerful, upbeat and so cooperative. One of them said that I was a real joy to be with and that she loved being there for me.
EVERYONE ON THE SURGICAL TEAM WAS LOVING, PRESENT and AT EASE
Through the course of the surgery, I was under the care of a series of nurses, an anesthesiologist and the doctor…a team of 8 people who all were loving, caring, present and totally at ease.
I felt I was being taken care of by people who truly cared, as if I were an important member of their own family and my heart opened to be in that loving and competent environment.
Then a male nurse came and said… “its time to go to the operating room” and started pushing me out of the room and through the halls and finally through swinging door doors into the operating theatre.
I felt like a teenager having a ride at a carnival while on some kind of mild hallucinogenic.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
THE OPERATING ROOM WAS ULTRAMODERN WITH A TEAM READY TO TAKE CARE OF ME
I did not know what to expect before we went into the operating room but was surprised to see a large ultra-modern space with big gleaming machines suspended over the operating area…and the three-person operating team standing in full gowns, gloves and goggles, ready to take care of me.
My gurney was parked under these machines and bright lights, and I was laid back into a slanting position.
My memory is a little blurry, but I remember a needle being inserted somewhere that delivered anesthesia that swiftly numbed my eye.
Then I could feel the pressure of the surgeon cutting the pterygium, the big bulging growth that nearly covered my cornea, off the surface of the eye, and a sensation of scraping as he worked to get it all.
Then he cut a graft piece of skin from my upper eye lid and laid it into the area where the pterygium had been, using special surgical glue that would hold it in place long enough for the graft to become part of the eye.
He had told me earlier that this would prevent the pterygium from growing back in the future.
I was surprised to feel no pain at all.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
I HAD A WONDERFULLY UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE
I was pleasantly surprised that I was having a wonderful, uplifting experience from the time I walked in the door and all the way through the surgery.
The eye specialist exuded complete confidence and seemed pleased with the surgery. “We got It all and it looks very good, “he commented, as the nurse put an eye patch over my right eye.
After the surgery, I was wheeled back to the examination room, where a nurse brought me steaming hot coffee after I got dressed back into street clothes.
The doctor came by to see me and answer questions.
“I am calling in a prescription to the pharmacy for pain medication,” he told me, “When the local anesthesia wears off in an hour or two, you will have some pain, which you can manage it with the medication.”
He gave me dosage instructions and said, “if you start having stronger pain you can take two at a time…or less pain, you can cut one in half.”
“I want to see you tomorrow for a post operation checkup, but you should be fine.”
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DROWSY AND WOSSY AFTER THE OPERATION
Then, a nurse said, “we have called Ani and she is waiting for you outside…You are going to feel woozy for a little while, so take hold of my arm while I take you out to your car.”
I did suddenly feel very light headed as I got off the gurney after my two and a half hour journey, but the nurse held me firmly upright as we slowly navigated what seemed like miles to the side door.
She took me around the car to the passenger side, opened the door and helped me get in.
“It was a privilege to serve you today,” she said “You are going to want to take it really easy the rest of the day. Good luck.”
I didn’t know it then, but that was the just the beginning of my adventures on the ocean of pain.
Chinmayan after the surgery
I felt like I was floating in space as we drove back up into the mountains, and I was so grateful that Ani was there, driving us safely back. I started drifting into a drowsy state of being just barely aware of being in the car as we sped homewards on the freeway.
But by the time we got home, the first little waves of pain were lapping my consciousness as I was led from the car to my seat in the meditation hall on Still Mountain.
My eye was becoming very light sensitive, so Ani closed the thick curtains to make the room as dark as possible.
CONFINED TO A DARK ROOM AS A TSUNAMI OF PAIN RACED TOWARDS ME
I naively thought I could work on this lap top as I rested, but soon I couldn’t do anything but sit totally still and ride the waves of pain that were coming on stronger by the minute.
Ani went to get the pain medication for me from the pharmacy.
By the time she came back with it, I knew that I was about to go through a time of pain that would challenge me at every level, like a gauntlet of agony that I would have to pass through.
I knew I would be tested by relentless excruciating pain in ways that would take me to the edge and demand my full attention and focus to handle.
The time of exuberant enjoyment of this new experience was over and like one watching a gigantic tsunami racing across the sea to crash down on me, I trembled in fear but knew I could not escape it and would have to be tumbled and tossed on the incoming waves.
Here is a poem I wrote after getting home after the surgery and saying alone in a darkened room, facing and going through the hurricane of pain, from today’s “Journey Of The Heart Section”:
“Lessons From Riding Waves Of Pain” by Chinmayan
This story continues in PART THREE in the next issue of “The Dawning Light…”
Photo credit: Unsplash
Calligraphy by Chinmayan
Image Credit: Still Mountain Meditation Center
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