Why am I having a Corneal Transplant?

So where to start?  I don't want this blog to be massive paragraphs that I know myself would sometimes be a chore to read so I will try keep it to shorter stints.  On October the 16th 2012 I will be having a Corneal Transplant aka Corneal Graft on my right eye.  Thankfully it will not be my first as its nervous stuff to go through!  I had my left done in 2005 and although a long process it was worth it.  Before going into the finer details of what it involves you might be wondering why someone would need a Corneal Transplant?

As a teenager I was diagnosed with an eye condition called Keratoconus.  There are many long winded explanations of this, feel free to read more on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratoconus  But I find the easiest way to explain it is if you look side on at someone's front part of the eye it would be this shape )  However someone with sever KC like myself it is more >  Obviously this is not viable unless looking with correct equipment and there might be flaws with this explanation but people tend to understand it better I find like that.  The main way they correct this is through hard contact lenses that push the eye back to the correct shape like this )  However it can get so steep that lenses just don't work and pop out.  This photo gives an idea of how people see with KC without correction lenses/glasses

This is what left me in 2005 with the only remaining option of a Corneal Transplant.  I am not saying there are other options out there as there are many but for me my KC was too severe. 7 years later and touch wood everything has been fine with my transplant apart from ironically a minor rejection scare this weekend, a couple days before my pre op appointment for my right eye.  Thankfully due to a great Eye casualty in my city it appears it has been put under control with eye drops.

On Monday I will see the surgeon who did my last transplant and will do my right eye.  As long as everything is ok it will go ahead on the 16th.  So what does it involve?  The long and short of it is that the front layer of the eye, the cornea is cut out of my eye (under anaesthetic)  and then a donors cornea is stitched onto mine.  Next will be a recovery of anything up to 2 years including multiple drops numerous times a day and constant  weekly visits to the hospital for check ups.  Its a long slog but hopefully be worth it and I intend to document it through this blog and twitter, feel free to follow on this blog and @cornealgraft on twitter :)