Sally Breslin: My Life: MY CATARACT SURGERY MADE ME WANT TO LAUGH

Maybe it’s because I have a weird sense of humor, but several things struck me funny during my recent right-eye cataract surgery.

First of all, the surgery was done at an outpatient clinic three towns away. I was instructed to check in on the second floor and to bring my “ride person,” a.k.a. my friend Dot, with me.

We arrived at the desk and my information was taken. Then I was handed a rose-colored T-shirt with the clinic’s name on it as a welcome gift, along with a large laminated card with only a smiley face on it.

“Go downstairs and knock on the wooden door,” the woman instructed me. “Then show them the smiley face and they will let you in to have your surgery.”

She then looked at Dot and said, “You have to leave. We’ll call you about 15 minutes before Sally's ready to go home, and then you can wait outside in front of the main doors and we’ll bring her out. It should be around 10 o’clock.”

Dot and I cast looks at each other as if to say, “Is this kind of weird, or what?”

But we did as we were told, even though I felt as if I were about to take part in some sort of initiation into a secret club instead of undergoing cataract surgery.

I found the wooden door and contemplated how I should knock on it – with a specific beat? Lightly? Pound on it? Finally, I just used my regular, everyday knock.

The door immediately opened and I held up the smiley face, as instructed, all the while wondering if I also should have put on the T-shirt as added proof. A smiling nurse greeted me and led me inside to a curtained cubicle, where she offered me a seat in a big recliner.

After asking me a list of health-related questions, she looked up at me and said, smiling, “You’re boring.”

That was the first time I’d ever heard that one. I’ve been called wacky, crazy, a chatterbox – and a few other choice things – but never boring.

“You’re boring because you don’t have any health issues and you don’t take any meds,” she explained.

"I'm recovering from a broken arm," I said, pointing at my brace. "That should count for something."

She then said, “On a scale of one to ten. How nervous are you feeling right now?”

Well, I wasn’t about to look like a coward, even though the thought of having my natural eye-lens sucked out through an incision was the stuff nightmares were made of. So I told her “two” on a scale of one to ten.

I thought I detected a sinister smirk as she whipped out the blood-pressure cuff and wrapped it around my arm.

“Uncross your legs,” she said.

I did.

Then without even realizing it, I immediately crossed them again.

“Uncross your legs,” she repeated.

I did again – but for only about two seconds. Then, as if my legs had magnets attached to them, they went right back to crossing.

It wasn’t my fault, however. I blame it on years of intense training. The minute I hit dating age back in high school, my mother always joked every time I was leaving on a date, “Have a good time, but just remember to always keep your legs crossed.”

Anyway, the nurse finally took my blood pressure and announced it was 190 over 91. It’s usually about 110 over 70, so I was shocked. I also recalled reading somewhere that 180 was considered stroke level, so at that moment I figured I was doomed. The surgery would be canceled and I’d immediately be administered megadoses of antihypertensives before I dropped dead.

But the nurse just shrugged and said matter-of-factly, “Sitting in that chair has a way of doing that to people.”

She then added, “I’m going to give you a Valium pill to put under your tongue that will relax you and even make you feel a little groggy. It works quickly.”

“No thank you.”

Her eyes widened. “It also will help you to lie still during the surgery. You can’t move, you know.”

“That’s okay. I promise you I won’t move. I haven’t even taken as much as a Tylenol in 35 years, and I really don’t want to start now.”

She didn’t attempt to conceal her skeptical expression. “You’re sure you don’t want the pill?”

“Positive.”

She left the cubicle to go talk to my surgeon, then returned with a waiver for me to sign, affirming that I’d refused the medication. I guess they were trying to protect themselves just in case I did end up moving and the surgeon accidentally de-nostrilized me.

At ten o’clock, I still was sitting in the cubicle…and wondering where poor, “banished” Dot was and what she was doing at that moment. My surgery had been scheduled for 8:45 AM, so I was pretty sure my blood pressure probably had hit the “call the coroner” level by then.

Finally, I was led to the operating room.

I was surprised that it looked like an actual operating room – like a place where you’d have your appendix removed. I’d pictured it to look more like an oral-surgeon’s office, where you’d have a tooth pulled.

But no, this place had an operating table, lots of lights and medical equipment, and I had to wear a cap and booties, and a big hospital gown over my clothes. And then there were the eye drops – lots and lots of eye drops.

The surgeon finally came in and said to me, "I just want you to know I don't talk during surgery and I don't want you to talk, either...unless you're experiencing pain or discomfort."

So, about 45 seconds into the surgery, she said to the surgical nurse, "So, how was your yoga class? Did you enjoy it? Do you think you'll go back?" and the two of them had a full conversation about it!

For some reason, that struck me funny and I had to struggle not to laugh – especially after taking my vows of silence and non-movement.

I was hooked up to a monitor and could hear it beeping…beep…beep…beep…at a fairly calm rhythm, which eased my previous fears about my blood pressure.

Then the surgeon quietly said, “I’m going to make the incision now.”

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

But I never felt a thing – nothing at all. And I also managed to lie still and keep my mouth shut for the whole 15 minutes the surgery took.

Lying still was the easy part. Keeping my mouth shut was torture.

The surgeon told me my eye had “cooperated perfectly” and she was very pleased with the results. She then said she would see me in her office in the city that afternoon for a follow-up at 2:00.

It was only 10:45.

The nurse back in the cubicle gave me sheets of post-op instructions and said to go straight home – no stopping for errands, shopping or to eat lunch – just go home and rest.

“I can’t,” I said. “I have a follow-up appointment in three hours, and it’s too far to go all the way home and back again.”

“There’s a nice park next to the doctor’s office,” she said. “You can stretch out on a bench there and rest. Or you can sleep in the back seat of the car.”

The woman obviously hadn’t noticed all of the local newscasts warning about record-breaking heat that day, with temperatures in the mid-90s – rare for a spring day in New Hampshire. I could just imagine myself asking Dot to keep her car running with the air-conditioner on so I could nap for three hours.

Finally, wearing the sunglasses they provided straight from the Roy Orbison collection, I was led out to Dot’s car. She had been waiting there since 10 AM and announced, after asking how I felt, “I’m hungry and I have to pee.”

Poor Dot. I honestly think she ended up suffering a whole lot more than I did during the surgery. And I feel really guilty about that.

What happened after we left the clinic? And were there any post-op complications? I’ll tell you all about it in my next blog post. Let’s just say that sticking to the long list of “don’ts” after the surgery has been a real challenge for me…because old habits die hard.

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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net

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