Simus
An Excellent Site Member
Hey there guys and gals of SF. It's me, Simus. You may know me from such awesome roleplays as Reforging an Empire, Fading Hope, Reforging an Empire 2, Dusk and many others. Or you may know me as that guy with the star next to his name that pops in and out of the shoutbox every so often. Well I've decided to ascend from the dark and grimy basement of roleplaying and come up here to the lobby because something very significant happened to me over the weekend and now I feel good enough to write about it.
On Friday morning at about 9:00 a.m I had my left eye removed. I've been blind in it since I was a baby and it's caused me one problem or another my whole life. Removal of it and replacement by an artificial shell has always been an option to be but I've never been willing to do it before. I've been able to live with my eye and I didn't want it removed, but things have changed since I graduated from college. In recent years it's adversely affected my employment and social prospects so a couple of months ago, after talking it over and being convinced by my parents and brother, I decided to go through with it. It wasn't something I wanted to do. I was being asked to give up part of my body for purely cosmetic reasons and there was always the slim hope that maybe, just maybe, stem cells could fix things for me. But, in the end, I decided that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by going through with it.
Overall, things have gone very well. I was put under at the hospital Friday morning and was home by 1:30 that afternoon. My stay in the hospital only involved about an hour of post-op recovery to make sure the anesthesia didn't do anything horrible to me and it was gentler on me than last time. Last time being fifteen years ago when I was 12 and had to have a buckle wrapped around my right eye to prevent the retina from detaching and me going completely blind. My eyes and I have had a lot of history, largely thanks to being born three months early and needing over a dozen surgeries in my first five years to correct things. One more reason why I was reluctant to part with my eye. We've been through a lot together, burden or not.
When I got home I was in discomfort but not pain. I've been amazed at just how little pain has been associated with this surgery. Over the last four days I really haven't suffered at all. I've just been uncomfortable. I needed vicodin the first night to sleep and again on sunday due to some anxiety and discomfort but other than that I've stuck to alleve or nothing at all. My doctor told me that things would rapidly improve after the surgery and he was right. I was able to sit in a recliner and watch movies on Friday night, even though I couldn't use my glasses since I had a giant eye patch filled with cotton over my left eye. The next morning, saturday, the patch came off. Saturday morning started off hard because I had to do the first of my ointment treatments. Ointment going into my eye to cut down on discharge it's been producing and prevent infection, along with an antibiotic four times a day. That first time was tough because my eyelids were so sore and I had a lot of buildup from tears and mucous. But since then things have gotten easier every time. Yesterday my eye was starting to open by itself and today I'm in virtually no discomfort, though my eye's still swollen enough to stay closed.
So far my worst day has been Sunday. I felt good enough Saturday night to game and drink and then I slept on the couch downstairs in the basement. Unfortunately my head wasn't elevated enough and the combination of lack of drainage and gravity pulling on my eye caused me discomfort for most of the next day. I also got a text from my boss Sunday afternoon asking if I was coming in that day and that made me realize how much of an idiot I was. I had told him about this surgery weeks ago and he was fine with me taking a week off to heal. The problem is I had never filled out the paperwork to do this and only remembered about it when he texted me. Obviously I had some explaining to do and he reminded me that it was my responsibility to do the proper paperwork for medical reasons. He left it at that so I'm not in any particularly spicy trouble but it caused me great anxiety. That, combined with the discomfort I have when I go without a cold compress for twenty minutes and being stuck in the house for two days made me crazy enough to where I needed vicoden again to calm down and go to bed.
I am pleased to report however that since then things have gotten much better. My eye improved markedly over the course of yesterday and I was able to open it up enough for my mom to see the clear lens the doctor put in there over my implant. The implant being a little ball of coral roughly the size of my eye that was placed in there after the surgery so my orbit can hold its shape. Apparently if that space is left vacant it can cause my face to misshapen due to an eye no longer being there and that is the opposite of what we want. I was able to get out yesterday to my local comic and game shop and that really felt good. Being out of the house and playing MTG with my friends again helped things feel normal and that went a long way towards getting my mind right. Sleeping in my own bed again helped too. I've done that the last two nights and I still have to keep my head elevated but it's much more comfortable than sleeping in a recliner chair. Last night I was able to sleep in my side and stomach again even though I still had to keep wight off the left side of my face due to the swelling. Today is the best day so far. My eye feels good, my brother's home to help me with my ointment and it's felt good enough to where I can almost rub it again. I won't do this because that would be incredibly dumb but that's a good sign. I've been ambulatory for this whole process so I'm gonna go for a walk later to try and stretch my legs. I've been able to walk farther every day and I'm getting to the point where I can go a proper distance, even though it'll still be about a week before I can work out again. The surgery center called today to see if everything was fine and they were please to hear that it was and I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor on Friday to see how I'm doing. If all, goes well, and there's no reason at this point to think it wouldn't, I can get a note from him and go back to work this weekend. My boss is annoyed with me and I won't get any more time off for a while but I still have a job.
At this point I'm slowly working towards getting back to normal and I get to look forward to my new shell in about eight weeks. These things are amazing. They are absolutely indistinguishable from normal eyes and with the implant I have as an anchor I'll be able to move it around. No one will ever have to know my eye's blind again and that is a very exciting prospect. Once I get that shell it'll all be worth it. I knew that before I got the surgery done and now that I've had some time to cope I really believe that. In the meantime, all I have to do is look after myself. I'll keep you guys posted on how things go but right now, things couldn't be better. Thanks for everybody here who's supported me already and thanks to everyone for their continued support. You guys and this site are all very special to me and I'm proud I could share this with you.
On Friday morning at about 9:00 a.m I had my left eye removed. I've been blind in it since I was a baby and it's caused me one problem or another my whole life. Removal of it and replacement by an artificial shell has always been an option to be but I've never been willing to do it before. I've been able to live with my eye and I didn't want it removed, but things have changed since I graduated from college. In recent years it's adversely affected my employment and social prospects so a couple of months ago, after talking it over and being convinced by my parents and brother, I decided to go through with it. It wasn't something I wanted to do. I was being asked to give up part of my body for purely cosmetic reasons and there was always the slim hope that maybe, just maybe, stem cells could fix things for me. But, in the end, I decided that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by going through with it.
Overall, things have gone very well. I was put under at the hospital Friday morning and was home by 1:30 that afternoon. My stay in the hospital only involved about an hour of post-op recovery to make sure the anesthesia didn't do anything horrible to me and it was gentler on me than last time. Last time being fifteen years ago when I was 12 and had to have a buckle wrapped around my right eye to prevent the retina from detaching and me going completely blind. My eyes and I have had a lot of history, largely thanks to being born three months early and needing over a dozen surgeries in my first five years to correct things. One more reason why I was reluctant to part with my eye. We've been through a lot together, burden or not.
When I got home I was in discomfort but not pain. I've been amazed at just how little pain has been associated with this surgery. Over the last four days I really haven't suffered at all. I've just been uncomfortable. I needed vicodin the first night to sleep and again on sunday due to some anxiety and discomfort but other than that I've stuck to alleve or nothing at all. My doctor told me that things would rapidly improve after the surgery and he was right. I was able to sit in a recliner and watch movies on Friday night, even though I couldn't use my glasses since I had a giant eye patch filled with cotton over my left eye. The next morning, saturday, the patch came off. Saturday morning started off hard because I had to do the first of my ointment treatments. Ointment going into my eye to cut down on discharge it's been producing and prevent infection, along with an antibiotic four times a day. That first time was tough because my eyelids were so sore and I had a lot of buildup from tears and mucous. But since then things have gotten easier every time. Yesterday my eye was starting to open by itself and today I'm in virtually no discomfort, though my eye's still swollen enough to stay closed.
So far my worst day has been Sunday. I felt good enough Saturday night to game and drink and then I slept on the couch downstairs in the basement. Unfortunately my head wasn't elevated enough and the combination of lack of drainage and gravity pulling on my eye caused me discomfort for most of the next day. I also got a text from my boss Sunday afternoon asking if I was coming in that day and that made me realize how much of an idiot I was. I had told him about this surgery weeks ago and he was fine with me taking a week off to heal. The problem is I had never filled out the paperwork to do this and only remembered about it when he texted me. Obviously I had some explaining to do and he reminded me that it was my responsibility to do the proper paperwork for medical reasons. He left it at that so I'm not in any particularly spicy trouble but it caused me great anxiety. That, combined with the discomfort I have when I go without a cold compress for twenty minutes and being stuck in the house for two days made me crazy enough to where I needed vicoden again to calm down and go to bed.
I am pleased to report however that since then things have gotten much better. My eye improved markedly over the course of yesterday and I was able to open it up enough for my mom to see the clear lens the doctor put in there over my implant. The implant being a little ball of coral roughly the size of my eye that was placed in there after the surgery so my orbit can hold its shape. Apparently if that space is left vacant it can cause my face to misshapen due to an eye no longer being there and that is the opposite of what we want. I was able to get out yesterday to my local comic and game shop and that really felt good. Being out of the house and playing MTG with my friends again helped things feel normal and that went a long way towards getting my mind right. Sleeping in my own bed again helped too. I've done that the last two nights and I still have to keep my head elevated but it's much more comfortable than sleeping in a recliner chair. Last night I was able to sleep in my side and stomach again even though I still had to keep wight off the left side of my face due to the swelling. Today is the best day so far. My eye feels good, my brother's home to help me with my ointment and it's felt good enough to where I can almost rub it again. I won't do this because that would be incredibly dumb but that's a good sign. I've been ambulatory for this whole process so I'm gonna go for a walk later to try and stretch my legs. I've been able to walk farther every day and I'm getting to the point where I can go a proper distance, even though it'll still be about a week before I can work out again. The surgery center called today to see if everything was fine and they were please to hear that it was and I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor on Friday to see how I'm doing. If all, goes well, and there's no reason at this point to think it wouldn't, I can get a note from him and go back to work this weekend. My boss is annoyed with me and I won't get any more time off for a while but I still have a job.
At this point I'm slowly working towards getting back to normal and I get to look forward to my new shell in about eight weeks. These things are amazing. They are absolutely indistinguishable from normal eyes and with the implant I have as an anchor I'll be able to move it around. No one will ever have to know my eye's blind again and that is a very exciting prospect. Once I get that shell it'll all be worth it. I knew that before I got the surgery done and now that I've had some time to cope I really believe that. In the meantime, all I have to do is look after myself. I'll keep you guys posted on how things go but right now, things couldn't be better. Thanks for everybody here who's supported me already and thanks to everyone for their continued support. You guys and this site are all very special to me and I'm proud I could share this with you.
I'm happy all is going well for you!
