Sometimes things do not go right

by Rayw1

In January 2011 I had a retinal detachment of the right eye. It occurred on the 4th of that month and by the 6th, I was in hospital for the first of four traumatic operations.

The first problem arose while awaiting surgery at a large Brisbane public hospital. After being dressed for the occasion, I was approached by a female doctor who placed one eye drop in my eye before going on to other patients who were also awaiting surgery. Suddenly a porter appeared and whisked me away to the theater where the anesthetist placed a needle in my left hand for sedation. I informed him that I had suffered a stroke on the left side and that he might find it difficult to insert the needle into a vein. After a bit of jabbing around, he managed to set the needle in place ready to administer the sedative used for retinal detachment surgery.

After some ten minutes? I was presumed ready and the surgeon set the clamps etc ready to begin. This was the beginning of a very traumatic time. The surgeon commenced cutting and much to my shock and surprise, I could feel the actual cutting begin.

I yelled at him to cease because I could feel this all quite strongly. The surgeon yelled "More 37 more 37" or words to that effect and stopped his work. After a few minutes he began again but again I was forced to stop him as the added material probably had not yet taken affect.

Some minutes later the surgeon was able to proceed as I was now securely doped. How this first problem arose was probably due to two factors, the first being that the doctor administering the original eye drops placed only one drop before I was taken up for surgery, whereas they normally administer four sedation drops to the eye.

The second factor was perhaps due to the left side of my body having limited blood supply of which they were informed and this may have slowed the input of the sedation needed for the surgery.