How the op went. in Nojomo 2014

How is Lila, thanks for those who asked and thank you, especially, to Bibotea who chatted to me throughout the day via text, keeping me sane when I felt as though I would lose my mind.

She was so incredibly brave and stoic about it all, although she wouldn’t speak to anyone. I had to answer the majority of the questions.

The nurses and the anaethsetist (Dr Craig) was fun (I think it’s a party of their job description) and we know the surgeon as we’ve been seeing her every four months for several years. They really made us feel like we were the most important people there which is an awesome way to be with your patients.

Lila was the first operation of the day, I dressed her in her gown and we went to the anaesthetic room. Dr Craig chatted away inanely, putting her at ease, while hooking her up for her drip. Suddenly her eyes closed, her head fell back and Dr Craig took her from me, onto the bed and fastened a mask to her face. She looked so small, so much like my baby and I had to leave her.

I had downloaded a couple of free short stories on my kindle with a Christmas theme. It took an hour to read them both, they were shit! However it took my mind off things - whenever I stopped reading I started picturing her on the operating table and I had a strong urge to go and rescue her.

After an hour and a quarter the surgeon came into the waiting room, looked around and left. I was confused, if she was there then Lila must be finished. But she looked at me and walked out again. I began to feel very stressed, I waited another ten minutes for her to come back but she didn’t so I went out to the desk and asked after Lila. The receptionist told me that the surgeon had been looking for me and mustn’t have recognised me. I failed to keep it together, my eyes were leaking and she told me to sit down, that they would call through when they were ready for me to go to recovery. I waited again, another ten minutes before I asked when they were likely to call so she called them, someone came to find me and I was taken to find this tiny little ball of pink dressing gown with a bit of blonde hair sticking out, foetal is the only way to describe her position! Gently stroking her hair, I chatted to her, told her that I was proud of her, she was so brave. And she slowly woke up. We were wheeled through to the ward as she woke more, I picked her up, snuggled on my lap.

Shaking and grey she asked for a drink, then toast and a banana. She demolished the lot at which point she started burning up, I was too hot for her to snuggle, she wanted to sit on the floor because it was cold so we went down to floor level and stripped her off.

Finally the surgeon found us, let us know that everything had gone smoothly, we were discharged, given eye drops and still made to feel as though we were the most special people there.

Lila wasn’t up to walking so I carried her out of the hospital, I wrestled with my bag to find my car parking ticket, put it in the machine to be informed that we would have to pay £6.50. Next I was fighting to find my purse, when a parking attendant came up, peered at the price and delved into his wallet. He pulled out a get-out-of-jail(or car park, in this case)-free card, gave it to me and said “you’ve obviously had enough of a bad day.”! I really did appreciate his gesture, I think I was too shattered, wrung out etc to let him know how much I appreciated it, I really want to find him to say thanks, lots of thanks.

At home she was very uncomfortable, her eye was stinging and she just didn’t know what to do with herself, I covered her up with a quilt in the hope that she would feel more comfortable and she was out like a light, slept for two hours.

The anaesthetic slowly left her body and now she just has a very sore, very red eye. We have to put two eye drops in, three times a day, and she really fights it, I don’t think she means to but her natural protective instinct won’t let anything near her eye. It’s awful forcing her to have it done but they’re so important. One is an antibiotic to avoid infection and the other is supposed to ease the gritty feeling.

Is there a difference? It certainly hasn’t wandered outwards, it has gone inwards when she was tired but otherwise seems to move with the other eye. Her follow up appointment will be on Christmas eve, hopefully we’ll get a better idea of how well it has all worked, hopefully she will feel less pain in her eyes and hopefully she will become less resistant to having her eye drops…