The Cataract Story

Just still a little blind.

Monday morning I had one cataract removed. It was a day from hell. It didn't start well when I wasn't allowed to drink coffee or anything else for that matter and I could smell the coffee I made for Steve, grrr...

We drove the 45 minutes to the hospital in the foggy and rainy darkness not really knowing exactly where we were going. On arrival we found a parking spot right by the door and I thought, wow are we ever lucky. The parking meter swallowed my credit card and no matter wouldn't give it back. By this point I'm in a friggin tizzy because I'm due in Admitting in like 5 minutes and I'm frantically trying to get my card out of this machine. In case your wondering why I needed to use a credit card for parking? The price for parking was something insane like $3.50 per HALF hour.

Steve being the good man that he is went off to find a security guard and when he returned with one I left them both guarding the machine and card and took off to Admitting.

I'm sent off to the eye surgery floor and given a gown to put on over my clothes, have an I.V. inserted in my shrunken dehydrated vein and sit to wait. This is the fifth different hospital I've become acquainted with Since December 2007 and by far the worst of the bunch.

In every other hospital the day surgery department has recliners for waiting patients and you are given a warm blanket. Not this time. Just a hard chair in a dinky little room and Steve couldn't even stay with me. There were four people ahead of me and I thought it would be a long wait...not. My ophthalmologist was churning them out every twenty minutes. Steve told me that the nurse told him he was doing 26 operations.

My turn arrived and the anesthesiologist said he'd make me comfortable. He lied big time because I felt every little thing and it hurt like hell. I asked the doc about that this morning at my checkup appointment and told me that the Ontario government has asked hospitals to use the absolute minimum anesthetic thereby shortening the recovery time needed for the patient. I guess that's how they can do so many surgeries, in and out like a factory line. When the Ontario government promised shorter wait lists for cataract surgery they compromised patient care in the process. I remember when my later mother had hers done she was treated much better and had no pain at all. My eye still hurts today.

We retrieved the car and were home by eleven with a list of instructions and eye drops. Most instructions are easy to keep but I can't wash my hair for 7 days and that's going to be the hardest. I spent most of yesterday snoozing off and on.

As far as my sight goes, I still don't have clear vision in my eye although today is better than yesterday. I see him again in a week and hope it has improved by then. The one big thing I noticed and it was pretty amazing, the world through the operated eye is brighter. Whites' are whiter and colors are brighter now all I have to do is get rid of the fuzzy. I'm booked for the second eye but not until end of March. So much for the promised three weeks, it's somehow morphed into almost two months.

As far as the credit card goes, I never did get it back and when I got home had to cancel it.

Cataract Surgery

In less than a week I'm having cataract surgery on one eye with the second to follow about three weeks later. Now I have what I think/thought a really good Ophthalmologist and I trust him, kind of...

What has me in a quandary is the IOL (lens) being implanted. When I went for the measurement in early January, I knew very little about lenses. I knew there were mono vision and multi vision lenses but that's about it. I knew though that I wanted the multi vision lens because after wearing glasses for the better part of 60 years I really wanted to toss them, permanently. I also wore multi focal contacts from time to time and really liked them. Well good old Dr. R point blank said no, "we don't use them in the hospital because they can cause problems" without telling me what those problems were.

I started thinking about this and did some research on various lenses. Then I started obsessing about why? Was it a cost issue and was our overburdened public health care system trying to save money by not giving us the best lenses?

I saw his nurse during a recent pre op appointment and asked about cost. She gave me the prices for three upgraded lenses ranging from $155. to $875. I left a message for him to call me to discuss the lenses. He did, at 7:30 am the next morning when I was half asleep and could barely function. He basically told me that an upgrade was unnecessary, hadn't we already discussed this, and I would just have to "trust him", I'd be very happy.

I suppose I should have left well enough alone at that point but you know I'm not like that. Whenever someone says trust me, I have a problem. The last doc who said that to me messed up my foot for life.

I became totally convinced that the lens I wanted was the Acrysoft Restore Multi Focal and nothing but nothing was going to change my mind. I've been having sleepless nights over this so last night around two or so I got up and typed up a nice letter to Dr. R and faxed it to him. Feeling somewhat better I was able to fall asleep. Well at 6:45 am, (doesn't this guy sleep), he phoned and very nicely told me that nope, that lens is not an option for me because of the retinal scarring surgery I had in March of 2009. Seems that even though that surgery was successful, there is still some scarring there and he feels the multi focal lens won't work for me. Why the heck didn't he just tell me that in the beginning? He would have saved us both a lot of grief and me sleepless nights.

I give up, whatever will be will be...

Happy Birthday Mom

My beloved Mother who died in May of 2007, would have turned 87 today. This is our third birthday without her and I truly thought she's still be with us. We miss her terribly.



I see so much of her in our granddaughter Elliotte, who she sadly never got to meet.

Dontate to Haiti - Please

The following links will take you to places you can donate to help the victims of Haiti.


Canadian Red Cross

Medicins Sans Frontiers

Oxfam Canada

World Vision Canada

My Favourite People

I'm posting these photos for my German and Greek friends and relatives who wouldn't otherwise see them.

My Granddaughter Elliotte...



Elliotte on Christmas morning. Notice how Santa was nice enough to put the train track together for her...



Christmas morning, Oma (that's German for Grandmother) with Elliotte...



There is a story behind this colorful dress. You all remember Sophia our neighbour in Greece? She wore this dress when she was a little child more than 25 years ago. When we left Athens in October we were presented with this dress for Elliotte to wear. She looks really cute in it.



Steve with Elliotte...



My oldest grandson, Justin...




My middle grandson, Bradyn...



My youngest grandson, Cassidy. Cass will be passing through Toronto at the end of this month and has asked me to knit him a hat. If your reading this Casss, the hat is knit and waiting for you.



It was a wonderful Christmas, it was just too darn cold. I hear though now that we've left they are having a Chinook, grrr...

Flying To The U.S. - Do I Really Want To?

If I have to go through one of these, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever fly to the U.S. again. Somehow I don't think I'm the only person who feels this way, or am I...

Happy New Year

Wishing all my friends the most wonderful 2010.

We had a nice Raclette feast just the four of us with lots of Martinis and good wine.






At midnight the Calgary Zoo had a fabulous fireworks display which was visible from the offsprings house. A little cold though at -25 Celsius. Shortly after midnight we all crashed out.

Flying back to T-Dot in the next couple of days