the clueless american

I’m here in San Antonio, where in 6 days I’ll be letting the military doctors (well, their «laser» at least) cut on my eyeballs. I was accepted in the USAF’s PRK surgery program in December after some initial testing, but I’m starting to think maybe someone doesn’t want me here.

My first obstacle was obtaining orders. Not permission, mind you, just the permission actually typed out and signed. The permission came on 27 December, but yesterday at 1510 I was sitting there at my desk calling every number I could find for the hospital business office at Robins. If it wasn’t 3 hours away I would have driven down to see what was up. Finally at 1551 the orders came in by fax, I re-faxed them to the travel agency, and they issued my e-ticket.

The fun didn’t stop there. This morning we sort of dawdled around the house but left only 10-15 minutes late. When we left the house e said she wanted to accompany me to the security gate, but by the time we got to the airport nearly an hour later we realized I needed to jump out and go. I did just that, and 2 minutes later was on the phone with e asking her to come right back. Turns out the limit on bags is now 50 lbs, not 70 like it used to be. My bag was 61 lbs of mostly clothes with a few goodies thrown in. I wound up getting rid of the portable DVD player, my USAF leather jacket (I have to wear a uniform sometimes here), and all the DVDs I planned to take. Now that I see my room has a DVD player I wish I’d taken at least some of the movies with me.

Anyway, I dumped the extra stuff in e’s car when she returned and then started briskly walking to the terminal. By the time I passed security and rode the tram to my terminal, I was showing up at about 1055 for an 1123 pushback. When I got to the gate the electronic sign showed a different city, and at the bottom it said that the San Antonio flight had moved from D35 (the farthest from the tram, btw) to C25. I rushed back to the tram and hopped on one just before the doors closed. I ran up the long escalator and hustled over to C25 only to find them boarding for another city. I asked the guy where my flight had moved, and he gave me the “all passengers are idiots” tone and said it was at—wait for it—D35.

Although I was already nearly out of breath from running to C terminal, I managed to go back a little faster. I missed the train but luckily had to walk only one terminal’s worth. I ran up the escalator again (no mean feat if you’ve ever seen the huge climb those babies make) and puffed my way back to my gate. The electronic sign still made no mention of my flight. Turns out they turned off my flight’s info back at 1050ish when they started boarding and thought they’d helpfully tell the next San Antonio flight that they had moved. I hustled out to the ramp, nearly boarding an empty jet because I saw the exiting flight crew and not the ramp agent beckoning me from 100 feet away.

I finally settled into my seat, turned the air on full blast, and tried to relax. I went through the annoying process of untangling the mini-earphones only to find that my Archos Jukebox had apparently turned on when I packed it last night. The battery light flashed and I got 30 seconds of song before it cut off. Not my day.

After a music-less flight, I made my way to the baggage claim area. Since the bags are usually slow, I figured I’d pick up the rental car first. Big mistake. In front of me was a couple from Mexico who hadn’t made a reservation and were hemming and hawing about getting a mid-size when they really wanted a compact which was all rented out. I stood there at least 15 minutes, and then had to wait another 10 while someone at the lot found a reserved compact for me that hadn’t already been let go. By the time that mess was done I was able to get my bag and hop right on the Advantage shuttle. 30 minutes later I was still in the parking lot waiting for the car I’d started paying for back at the counter. The 3rd person who looked at my documents finally found my car. Even though they knew I was on my way long before, they decided to park it out back instead of making it ready for me. I told all this to e while I was waiting and she said I needed to get to my room and lock myself in for the rest of the night to be sure nothing else happened.

Getting to the room wasn’t quite as easy as I’d hoped, including the 4-5 car major accident on the opposite side of I-410 that made my rubbernecking side slow to a crawl. At least I wasn’t in the accident or behind it. I finally made it here and was pleasantly surprised to find that they’d put me in a little suite for my 10 day stay. Now only if it had internet access. I need to either hook up my cell phone for a while or head to the BX to see if they have some sort of short term internet dialup plan, or I’ll use the cell phone to find a free wifi hotspot. Wish I’d have thought of that back home when I had the ability to search easier. Oh well.

Tomorrow I need to head over to Brooks AFB where I’ll undergo a full day of testing to be sure that my eyes really are eligible for surgery, then I’ll have a pre-op at Wilford Hall the next day, the whole weekend off, then surgery Monday morning.

...just about every kind of eye test there is, I'd wager. Over the last two days I've had my eye digitally mapped, had photos taken of it, done the standard eye charts, seen tough low-contrast charts, and even tested my NVG acuity. I thought I'd be done yesterday, but there wasn't enough time to complete everything so I went back this morning. They started out by dilating me and then proceeded to repeat a lot of yesterday's tests. Then, just when I thought the testing was over, they sent me to another building at Brooks where another doctor did some of the same tests they had just done next door. Before examining me, he started out by saying they'd found a few "such-and-such" cells in my left eye and oh by the way did I have a history of glaucoma in my family? It was the first time anyone had mentioned glaucoma to me, but when I mentioned I was adopted and don't know my family history he shrugged it off and never mentioned it again.

I think something in these drops must make me tired, because I've just woken up from my third nap today. I feel like I could have a snack and then head right back to sleep, but I think I'll wind up being awake a while.

Nothing much else to report...with my eyes supposed to be dilated 24-48 hours, I can't see anything too close (especially with glasses) and can't see anything too far when I take the glasses off. I'm looking forward to being able to see normally tomorrow.

...dilation. Looks like my hopes to see normally were misplaced. This morning I went to the actual hospital where the surgery will be performed to get my pre-op exam. All of the tests were ones I had done at least once at Brooks, but the techs kept explaining them like I'd never seen them before and saying things like "I know we have some weird tests here compared to what you've seen."

After doing about 90% of the tests, one of the techs gave me more dilating drops just to be sure I'd stay dilated for the full exam. After that I think I had about 10 total minutes of exam time so they were probably unneccessary, but nobody asked me.

The final meeting was with a doctor who told me there was nothing to yesterday's brief glaucoma discussion. He said he saw nothing in my eyes or the record to even mention the topic. Now all I have to do is wait the whole weekend and then come back Monday morning at 6:30 to finally get the surgery.

On another note, after ponying up a few bucks for a local dial-up account, I discovered today that the lodging office has free wi-fi in its lobby. I'm here in a conference room right off the lobby with about 5 other families all checking email and surfing the web. It's not as convenient as my room, but it's a heck of a lot faster than the 36.4 dial-up speed I've been getting.

Like I said to e on the phone, I spent the first 3 days being tested and talking or hearing about my surgery all day long. After 3 days of not talking about it, it's almost a surprise that it's time! I'll be trying to make myself go to bed in a little while, and then tomorrow I'll be up at 5 for my 6:30 appointment. I don't know exactly when the surgery will happen, but I should be back in the room by noon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for better than 20/20, but I have to make myself be happy with anything as long as I can still see.

Note: I can finally see well enough to start using the computer again so I'm going back and blogging about my surgery. Well, today was the BIG day, and I'm already done! Last night I was naturally unable to sleep because I kept thinking about the surgery--even while I was asleep. I got up at 5, got ready, and took my last look at the alarm clock through glasses before leaving. Even though it was short enough to walk, I decided to take the bus there. The bus got me to the hospital at 6:05 for my 6:30 showtime, and I expected to be waiting alone for a while. I needn't have worried because almost everyone else was already there when I showed up. After a short wait they herded all of the morning patients--about 10 I think--into a briefing room. There the surgeon gave us a group consent briefing and we all signed our consent forms. Then a technician explained all the medicines we'd be getting and went through the dosage for the first day. One of the things she mentioned was that they'd be doing the surgery in rank order. It was hard for me not to smile because as far as I could tell I was the highest ranking person there. 10 minutes later when I was the first one called to the prep room, the technician was surprised to be seeing me. She said she expected me to be one of the lowest ranking. She got me ready by giving me my obligatory shower cap and then taping two big pieces of gauze on my cheeks. Those were to catch any liquids that might spill out of my eyes during surgery. At 7:35 am the surgeon came in to meet me and briefly discuss my procedure. He said that my level of prescription led him to believe I'd be a home run--vision as good or better than my previous corrected vision. At about 7:40 I was led to the first seat in the surgery waiting room, but a few minutes later a worried tech rushed up and said she'd forgotten that my eyes were still a little dilated when they saw me on Friday. I was whisked off into an exam room for some quick repeats of the tests they'd already done. At 8:10 I was back in the waiting area--still first--while I listened to the surgeons prepare for us. At about 8:30 I was brought into the room and told to lie down on a table. They gave me my anesthetic drops, and a minute later covered my left eye and propped the right one open. They wheeled me under the laser and then proceeded to scrub off my epithelium--the top layer of skin on the eye basically--with an electric brush. It sounds nasty but by then I didn't feel a thing. I just saw the brush coming at me and then it was blurring my vision for a few seconds. Finally it was laser time. My right eye needed a little more work and so got 22 seconds. I was told to keep focused on a flashing orange light, and the laser began. The whole time the surgeon kept saying "keep looking at the light, doing good, keep looking, almost there, etc." until the 22 seconds were up. After the laser it seemed like 10 different hands came into view dropping medicine in my eye and placing the contact lens bandage. Next they did the same to my left eye. The only bad part was that for some reason I could feel the brush a little bit and I got worried that the laser might hurt. It didn't, and this time 13 seconds was all it took. They wheeled me back over where I'd started and told me to sit up. They always ask patients to read the clock there, and although I could clearly see the numbers and hands I was to disoriented by the quickness of it all to say anything for a few seconds. I finally blurted out 9:37, but of course it was 8:37, less than 10 minutes after I'd entered. Darn those analog clocks! After the surgery I was brought across the hall into an exam room, where for about the 10th time this week I got the bright light/prism machine while they looked in my eye. I guess I'd better get used to that one. After a few quick reminders about the medicine I was told I could leave. It was surreal walking past the other patients getting ready. They were all looking hopefully at me so I gave a goofy thumbs up and said I was finished. As I walked out, the wife of one patient asked another, "Is he done already?" as I strolled out the door. As I walked back to the room I realized my vision certainly wasn't better than it had been, but still I was able to walk 1/2 mile on my own barely 5 minutes after surgery. I got back to the room, called e and my mom, and then got to work on the medication. They kept warning us the pain would be the worst in the first 24-48 hours so I planned to make the most of the percocet and benadryl they gave us. I did a round of drops: steroid, 3-5 mins later antibiotic, 3-5 mins later artificial tears. Then I ate a small snack, took my happy pills, and did another round of drops. Their advice for the first day is to sleep as much as possible, and if I wake up at least 2 hours later do more drops; if it's 4 hours later I get more percocet and benadryl. That's all I've been doing all day, calling e or my mom during my few minutes of wakefulness. Now it's time for more sleep, hopefully all night. Tomorrow morning I have my first followup at 7:30. I hope I'm not too drugged to make it!

I had no problem sleeping through the night on my last dose of Benadryl, and luckily no problem getting up this morning, either. I walked over to the hospital for my one-day followup appointment.

So far I can tell my vision is different, but I've got a long way to go until it's good. I'm seeing things in the mid-range that used to be blurry but far is still bad and near (which used to be perfect) is also blurry. I still haven't had any pain yet, which is good but leaves me dreading pain's arrival.

The exam was quick. I was disappointed that the technician didn't tell me exactly how I did on the charts, but it was clear that I've got a ways to go until 20/20.

After the exam I went to the hospital's mini-BX to buy some Refresh+ artificial tears. I'll be seeing those a lot over the next year. The various docs here at Wilford Hall have told me to use it every half-hour, every 15 minutes, and even every 5 minutes until 2007. That's a lot of tears!

Today has been another sleeping day. I'm not allowed to read, watch TV, or use the computer until Friday so I just keep popping the pills when I can and sleeping as much as possible. That's the one good thing about not having e with me. She would be bored stiff if she were here because all I do is sleep all day. I still miss her and The Boy though.

I originally had this as a "Groundhog Day" entry where I explained that everything today was like all the others, but later on I realized that today was in fact slightly different. I was trying to wean myself off of the Benadryl so today didn't take any of them. The result was that I needed to find something to do all day without being able to sleep it away. I took a walk over to the BX for my second or third shelf check of the trip, but I found that even the artificial light bothered my eyes so I headed back to the relatively dark room. Fortunately I had prepared for 4 days of no TV by bringing along an audio book. e found the complete, unabridged Narnia series at Sam's for less than $40. I brought along The Horse and His Boy to help pass the time. I had listened to a little of it last week when I was really bored and couldn't sleep. Today I finished it--about 5 hours of listening! It was a fun story, and I'm looking forward to hearing the next one in the series.

Is it bedtime yet? Today was the most miserable day of my trip, even though I finally got to come home.

It started out OK: I'd mostly packed the night before, so I had my breakfast, showered, finished packing, and got my bags into the car.

I walked over to the hospital for my final appointment here. They removed the contact lens bandages and pronounced my eyes as "coming along nicely." I wasn't seeing great, but it wasn't terrible and the doc said it should get better by the hour.

My appointment ended at 9 and my flight wasn't until 3. I couldn't get changed to an earlier flight so I figured I'd hang around base until noon and then drive to the airport. In the end I wish I had driven there right away and paid whatever was necessary to change to an earlier flight.

Initially everything was alright. Blurry, but no problems. I walked over to the BX for some time-wasting and last-minute shopping. At the end of my trip there my left eye started watering a lot. By the time I got back to my car outside the room it was really hurting and I could barely keep either eye open. You know how it is with your eyes: they always want to do everything together. Every time I tried to open my right eye--which was fine--my cursed left eye tried to follow. I was getting nervous about driving back to the airport and called e for advice. Poor thing, by then she'd spent 7 days with our sweet little niece and sick little boy. Her advice wasn't very objective; it was mainly that I needed to be on that plane come hell or high water. And trust me the waves were lapping at the car door. At the end of the call I remembered that they'd given us some anesthetic drops for last resort use only. I figured my situation qualified so I dropped one in my left eye. Almost immediately I was able to open it without pain. I couldn't see that well out of it but the right eye seemed good enough so I headed out.

I'll be quite honest. As I sped along US 90 and then I-410, I kept wondering if I hadn't made a big mistake, but the farther I got from the hospital the more it seemed like I just needed to make it to the airport. There was, not surprisingly, a major accident that slowed traffic to a bare crawl for a long part of the trip, but I got past it and started getting close to the airport, just as the drops were wearing off. I barely made it into the rental lot without having to pull over and re-dose. I made it through the turn-in process and on to the van without any trouble, then spent 10 painful minutes out in the sun while the guy in front of me tried to figure out if he really had changed his flight to today or if he was going some other time. He finally realized that curbside check-in wasn't the right place to figure that out and I got to check in.

The next part was the most miserable. Let me explain that I never considered using another anesthetic drop because they told us to use that only if we were planning to go to the emergency room, and here I was planning to fly home. What came next was a pitiful-looking, red-faced man stumbling through the security line with one hand under his dark sunglasses holdng his left eye firmly shut. I was able to make it through and find my gate, but only barely. It wasn't so much needle-in-the-eye pain as great discomfort as if I had a big stone in my left eye that was irritating it and keeping me from seeing.

While I waited for the plane I started making calls. First to e to let her know I was safely at the airport. She had the great idea of telling the airline about my problem so they'd give me extra help with boarding. That turned out to be a good thing later on.

Then I tried to call the hospital because I was starting to worry that I needed to get back there for more help. It was so painful to open my eyes that I took the first San Antonio number in my call history and started complaining to them. Turns out I had called Brooks for some stupid administrative question a few days ago, and they were the first one in my call history. They did let me talk to a doc, but I needed to call the surgery center at the hospital. After the Brooks fiasco I managed to get the right number and call the clinic. The tech I spoke with sympathized but basically said I needed to gut it out and see a doc in Atlanta tomorrow if it didn't get better. I relayed this news to e and she was very relieved to be getting me home.

I felt like I wasn't getting the requisite amount of sympathy from e, understandably because she had a screaming boy and noisy girl in the background, so I decided to call my mom. I wish I hadn't because I just about brought her to tears. After calling her I wasn't done talking yet. Funny how not being able to see made me want to talk to someone almost continuously. Anyhow, I decided to call a church friend in the remote hope that they or someone else from the church would drop what they were doing and either watch the kids for e or pick me up at the airport for her. I realize now I was probably just looking for some sympathy for me, but by gosh I felt like I deserved some :-)

I called our Bible Study teacher to fill him in on my surgery. When he asked "how are you doing?" I gave him an earful. I told him e was at the end of her rope and I was blind and alone in the San Antonio Airport. Right then while I was talking about how much stress e was under, I felt the tears come up in my throat so I cut the conversation off quickly.

With all of the phone calls the time to board the plane passed fairly quickly, and before I knew it they brought me aboard. I took another drop of the anesthetic right before boarding, and that allowed me to walk to my seat without being led there. I also dry-swallowed two percocet and two benadryl in the hopes I'd sleep the whole way.

Thanks to the cramped seats and two garrulous girls next to me, I didn't sleep the whole way, but did sleep at least half the trip. I had to put in another numbing drop during the flight because my eye bothered me too much to sleep. I did one more when the deplane crowd died down a little bit, and it lasted long enough for me to get off the plane and all the way to baggage claim.

I found e a few seconds after reaching the top of the escalator. She was literally a sight for sore eyes. I lasted long enough to hug niece K and kiss MJ, then started having the same trouble keeping my eyes open. This time I had my family to help me, so I kept both eyes shut and let them lead me through the airport. I opened them occasionally to avoid hitting something or to help get/move bags, but for the most part I was a blind man.

When we got home I hit the numbing drops again so that I could see my welcome home presents: balloons everywhere, get well pictures, and a large welcome home sign that e made for me. I stayed up for a while to enjoy not being alone for the first time in 10 days, but now my eye's hurting again and I need to sleep. Against e's advice I'm taking one more drop of the anesthetic to help me fall asleep. She doesn't want me to get addicted to the drops but I need to get lots of sleep tonight. I hope things look better in the morning.

Writing this more than a week after the fact, I don't truly remember this day. In fact, Sunday night I couldn't believe that Saturday had already passed. All I did was the medicine and sleep cycle all day. I think I was up for a little while at night and barely able to keep my eyes open with sunglasses on in a dim room. Who can be sure?

Today was a much better day than the last two. By now I'm actually able to open both of my eyes, although I'm still more comfortable doing it with less light. I can't really see too well out the left side, but at least the stone feels like it's gone. Also I forgot to mention earlier that e could see the roughness on my left eyeball and the left side was red Friday night, pink Saturday, and finally becoming white this afternoon.

I did a half day of the drop-and-sleep, which was 1/2 day longer than e was expecting. My poor baby is so stressed out by 9 days now alone with the two mucnhkins that she was really looking forward to me being awake with her all day today.

I've closed up the benadryl box, hopefully for good, and tomorrow we go to Robins to get my eyes checked. And, niece K goes home to her family in the morning!