Anyone for a air bubble eye injection?

Well as the title suggests I had air bubble injected into my eye today and no, not just for the sake of it :)  It will hopefully to help clear the liquid which is causing the cloudiness   At this exact point in time it is still blurry but was told to expect this and will take a week or so to see if has helped at all.  In a way I'm fed up the new graft isn't working out like the 1st one did on the other eye but then I realise things like this aren't straight forward and I am lucky enough to have good sight in one eye.  There are people who are far worse off than me and I am grateful for all that's been done for me so far.

Anyhow back to the juicy stuff!  So I turned up for my 10am appointment, at this stage was a bit nervous but thought hey they know what they are doing.  Within not too long was taken through to the operating theatre. Was stopped outside by a nice lady who checked I am the real Oliver Loveless and not some guy pretending to be me to get his hit of air bubble magic in the eye!  Once passing the identity test she proceeded to put drops in my eye, a nice concoction of anaesthetic drops and iodine   She then asked after final drop "Did that sting?"  My reply no, she said well good because usually it would like mad so now you are ready to go in!

Upon walking in there were a few people dotted around doing various things, a man called Tom took the job of handler and told me where to sit and how etc and what will happen. And that would be holding his hand throughout in case I had to indicate I needed to cough or sneeze so the surgeon could stop what he was doing hence preventing stabbing me by mistake!  Once all ready to go, the music was turned up, stereotypically opera, they could of asked me what I preferred and could of stuck The Stereophonics on.  At this point my consultant.surgeon flew in like superman to do the op.  I laid back, two stickers, a clamp and a large blue sheet later I was ready to be operated on.

This was odd, what looked like the largest robotic arm ever hovered above me and then BOOM, a bright white light shone into my eye, jeeeez it was bright!  Toms hand took a bit of a squeeze at this point but advised was just the bright light.  The next think I knew a needle was being inserted and a large bubble began to appear on surface of my eye.  At this point you might be trying to imagine what this is like.  I have an idea, while its raining stand at a window, get your partner or mate to shine a massive torch through the otherside, and press your face against the window so your eye is peering through a large water droplet and hey presto you know!  Well add a bit of pain in there for good measure if you wish!  This beloew photo is not my eye as cant be bothered taking a photo and connecting up to laptop tonight, but it essentially minus the redness looks similar bubble wise

So 15 minutes of lying there looking up and was all done.  Can now sort of see the bubble, looks odd.  I am back in 48 hours for check up, and just another waiting game.  Overall one of the weirdest things been through but I believe from reading about it that it is a widely used procedure for naturally making a donor cornea grip to the new eye, apparently the bubble press's it together so it sticks and no stitches are needed.  Obviously I already have stitches and hopefully isn't going anywhere but this should, well the theory is, that it will clear the unwanted liquid by dispersing it through pressure.  I shall report back soon :)

1 month check up

Well strictly speaking its a few days over a month since the corneal transplant but whos counting!  Not such a great day today check up wise.  I appears the eye pressure has gone up in the newly grafted eye and is high though he didnt give me a number.  The reason I say this is because back in around 2005/2006 when had the left eye done I was admitted to a ward following a check up because I had ridiculously high eye pressure in its 60s I believe and was at risk of the eye going blind.  At that time I was prescribed new drops to get the pressure down and from my memory that worked.  At this point I thought about sticking a photo of someone's eye pressure being taken but that's boring and for some reason this photo came up on google too and made me laugh so I think that's a better idea!  (Disclaimer-Non star wars fans wont get it though)

The main bonus this time is it hasn't got that high and not high enough to be admitted to hospital to keep an "eye" on it.  So I have been prescribed further eye drops to bring it down like all those years ago on the left.  And me and my little eye drop bottles have been reunited.  I remember them very well, is funny how things like that stick in your mind but I guess when you have to use them 4 times a day they do!  So in all I am now on 5 types of drops.  I wont list what they are as the names are ridiculously long on a couple of them.  But in all we have two types for the pressure, one to stop infections, one for comfort and one more I don't know yet as they didn't have it in stock and I will get it tomorrow.  I imagine it might be pressure related too.  I have been taken off altogether on the anti rejection drops as this is the cause of the eye pressure going up it is believed.  And this is backed up from my experience on the left eye.

All in all its a bit of a set back but at least it was caught now before it got any higher and touch wood the new drops will work.  Ill do whatever I am asked to do by the experts, this is the only thing I can do.  I did again think today it would be nice if had the money for private treatment as did seem like got rushed in and out today even after an hour delay.  But obviously a lot of people to get through and I do understand that.  Now I aim to give my eyes a break for a bit as been using a computer all week at work and I imagine this cant help, so today and tomorrow I have off so I intend to rest!  Oh and treat the wife and me to a nice Chinese to cheer me up!

Nearly 1 month

So coming this Tuesday it will be a month since I had my transplant.  Not really much has changed with the eye.  I had a check up on Monday just gone which went fine.  There is still fluid between the new cornea and my eye so this is causing the cloudy/blurriness.  It should apparently clear after a month or so.  Also I was prescribed lubrication drops to help smooth out the surface of the eye and they are a real help, less so bumpy when the eye lid goes over the stitches.

One thing that was odd was I was supposed to see the consultant who did the operation but they put me under one of his registrars to apparently save time.  This was a bad move as they were running an hour late but hey ho I could not do much.  The ironic thing was when I eventually got seen, he had to get the consultant who was next to him behind a 1 inch privacy board to come and check my eye anyway so they might as well as left me with the top man.  He obviously agreed with this because he put in capital letters on appointment request sheet "To See him only" next time.

This coming Wednesday I will be back to work so that will be good to have some more routine back as the 4 walls of the house I know very well now.

Anyway back to the eye, after all this is what the blog is about.  Like I said the lubrication drops are helping, theres no pain or anything but does occasionally feel like something is in there.  This is something that should go away in time.  And over the next few months the vision should improve from what it is at the minute.  There is still a bit of redness on the lower right of the eye and again this should clear in time, isnt massively noticeable.

So anything else that the transplant has affected?  It might seem like not bending over as instructed not to when had a graft would be easy but you would be surprised how many things you bend over to do.  Put the washing up back in the cupboards, picking up the clothes to be washed, picking up shoes to put on, and twice a day in our house, feeding our 2 feline friends and they wont wait for anyone!

So what's the next stage?  Have another check up in 2 weeks, all 3 drops are now 4 times a day so id expect that to stay the same for a little while now.  And touch wood in 2 weeks there might be some vision improvement, who knows, Ill take it day by day like normal.  Thanks to all for reading and hopefully is helping in some way to those thinking about having it done.