Removing the hospital bandage

Well I have just taken off the bandage. It was a bit of a tricky business as the eye was stuck together with um something. I had been warned against rubbing the eye and it took a while to separate the top and bottom eyelashes and the stroke the worst of the stuff off but I think I did a reasonable job and most important didn't hurt the eye with my antics.

I cannot see anything but blur with the eye, I had hopped I might do a little better but I don't think this really has any indication of how my sight will end up. It hurts bit more now that the bandage is off because there is nothing to stop me blinking which of course rubs the cornea. It's not too bad however. I'm not

sure that a bit of blinking doesn't help to clear debris from the eye and perhaps some other useful stuff so I

am going to leave it now for a bit. I have no instructions aboiut re-bandaging the eye but I may for a while latter. I know when similar
operations are performed it can be

common to wear a shield to bed to protect the eye from harm while sleeping. I haven't got one of them but do have a fairly strong eye patch that I may wear to bed or around just because I am overly cautious. Then again for the same reason and because I have not discussed it with my Dr I may not.

The eye is shut now, the glare from the comuter screen is too much for it. In the mirror I could see a circle of dints around my pupil which pressumably is the line of stiches. They took less cornea then I thought they might have. You will not be able to see this from the photos I took which don't show much of the eye itself really. I may have done better if I had taken photos with a flash, but I am not going to do that for a few days at the very least - the eyes a little sensitive about lightand everything right now. Which is why in the photo in the right I have to pull the eyelid open. It's too sensitive right now to want to open very far. It also keeps weeping, but at least with the patch off that can run out of the eye and be cleaned away. Hopefully it doesn't take to much medince with it. The entire area where I have the new cornea is recessed from the surface of the eye around it. I hope it is meant to be.

Through all this the pain is much less then you might suppose - more limited to little stabs when I move the eyeball around or blink with only a faint constant sting.

It occurs to me that my age could now be expressed as a 20 year range...this could confuse people I expect. :)

Update: Actually as with a lot of photography the trick is to get the light to do the right thing. Its an overcast day outside and I have an opaque bathroom window. Any more light then this might have been painful but looking towards the window wasn't very hard and I was able to get the light to reflect off the stiches. You can also see the window, with fine curtains closed and the hunched up shape that is me with my arm and mainly camera blocking the window light.

Also in the hour or so since I took the bandage off and put medicine in my eye has settled down a lot. Blinking is getting to be less noticeable (though I am still holding it shut as I sit here). For some reason I feel a little off today, I think I will go and lie down.

Update to the update. What you are seeing is not the light reflecting off the stitches which are in fact tiny and I may never get to show up in a photo, what you are seeing is the light reflecting off the area where the new cornea was placed. The whole area just inside is recessed from the surface of the eye around it. I do hope it is supposed to be like that, I guess it is. Another update I had a call from the surgery about making a follow up appointment. I mentioned the recess, they passed the message on to Dr Maloof and about 5 minutes he rang me and after sounding a little puzzled realised how closely I was looking at the eye and told me that this was due to the stitches being done up very tight pulling the new cornea flat and that it was deliberate and how it should be. I guess I am just being overly cautious but I had not heard of this before. He told me to expect me vision to get worse before it gets better.