NOVEMBER 1999

November 1, 1999: Went for a 1 1/2 week checkup. My astigmatism slipped back to 2 1/2 diopters, from the 1 diopter it was at after my sutures were adjusted a week ago. Dr. McNeill was in town doing cataract surgery today, so he readjusted the sutures. Dr. Everett had said they try to get  it under 1 1/2 diopters, but Dr. McNeill was able to eliminate it altogether. That is, until they slip again (and they probably will). Man, these doctors are skilled. I'm back on the ocuflox, 4 times a day for the next 2 days. When the anesthesia wears off, it's not nearly as painful as it was last time, but that's probably a function of the fact that last time, I figured out what eye motions hurt and I'm now reflexively avoiding them. Dr. Everett signs off on me returning to work on Thursday. I see him next on the 17th, 2 1/2 weeks from now.

November 4, 1999: First day back to work. It was about what I expected. Since I work four 10-hour shifts a week, my days are very long and today was no exception. My co-workers were impressed by the pictures, but I get the feeling most of them didn't notice I was gone. Well, that's what you get for working in the valley of the cubicles. The thing that shocked me was how dry my eyes got. I guess when you're taking 3 naps a day, they won't dry out as much. For the past week, I might have used 3/4 of one of those green vials of refresh-plus drops in a day. By the end of my shift today, I'd almost finished my second vial. Wow. What shocked me most, though, was that I remembered how to do my job (support the Windows98 operating system to consumers over the phone). I even remembered how to eradicate the "pretty park" worm virus, which we'd just heard about the week before I'd left. I took about as many calls as I usually would and they were about as long as they were supposed to be. My vision was about the same as it's been since my last suture adjustment, but my transplanted eye felt tired and swollen late in the day. Man, work sucks. 

November 17, 1999: It's been pretty uneventful for the last couple of weeks, which is why I haven't made any new entries. Mostly, I've been passing the URL for the surgery photos around to friends, family and co-workers. Some of them thought I was nuts for posting the pictures, but most thought they were pretty cool. Anyway, I went in for my 4-week checkup today. Hallelujah, my astigmatism hasn't come back, so there's no suture adjustment. However, the doctor says my eye is too dry, so I have to step up the use of artificial tears, which I admit I'd only use when my eye felt dry. He's also concerned about eye pressure, up to 23 from 17 pre-op (I forget to ask what the units are - lbs/sq. inch?), which is "the upper limit of normal," says Dr. Everett. I'm scheduled to go back in 2 more weeks, and he says he'll probably switch me to another steroid drop at that time, since Pred-Forte is known to elevate pressure. The other drop doesn't penetrate the eye as well, though, so he wants to keep me on Pred-Forte as long as possible. The other topic that comes up is nerve regeneration. While putting in drops awhile back, I accidentally touch the dropper tip to the cornea, but I didn't feel a thing. Since it's still basically foreign to my body, it's not too big of a surprise. But it gets me thinking: will the donor cornea ever be able to feel? According to Dr. Everett, it could take 1-3 years for those nerves to regenerate to provide normal sensation. 

November 23, 1999: I received a nice email from the Eye Bank telling me that they were in the process of getting my letter to the donor family delivered. I had also included a separate letter thanking the staff of the Eye Bank for their not inconsiderable part in my surgery, and I had pointed them to my web site, as a resource for recipients or anybody else interested. Anyway, their program development coordinator wrote that they are going to put a link on their site, and are probably going to mention my site in their newsletter, so that health care providers can have a recipient's point of view when they approach a grieving family about donation. On the one hand, I think it's kind of cool that people seem genuinely excited about my site, but at the same time, I feel like I haven't done this sort of self-promotion since my days in college politics. I'll try not to lose sleep over it.

November 30, 1999: I just put up the first motion video clip from the surgery. It's 44 seconds, showing the surgeon suturing the white of my eye to the ring holding it open. I plan on putting up maybe another 3 clips as soon as I can get them edited and compressed down to a manageable size.  

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