Janus Look 2

 Thursday 12.05 p.m.

I had to knock on the door to be let in, as I hadn’t brought a key with me in the ambulance either. My son answered the door, and seemed surprised.  “Andrea went to get you,” he said.  “Can you let her know I am back, please?” and he agreed, and went back up to his work, not thinking to ask me how I was. 

When my daughter arrived she made up for it, by taking full charge.  She had me sit down and made me some tea and toast.  Both presented an unconsidered problem.  With the toast, I can open my jaw, but not bite down on one side, so the food has to be put in cut into small pieces and slotted in on the good side. If the food gets shifted to the right side of the mouth, my tongue can’t cope with moving it over, so it is a push with my finger through my cheek situation.  The drink was a matter of almost as much leaking out at the right as went in on the left. I did learn how to drink over time, so don’t dribble so much now. 

Other problems were blowing my nose - only one side would work. Spitting toothpaste is totally non directed - and makes a  mess.  The hourly drops were a nuisance mainly because of the eye patch having to come off and not having an alternative to put on afterwards.  The patch became more fibrous with use and the odd bit of cotton would poke into my eye, and hurt.  But again with time, we sorted that out.

My daughter cooked meals and cleaned my house and watched TV with me, so she was a great help.  I was too pumped with adrenaline to get much sleep.

The next day was much the same until mid afternoon when putting the drops in, my eye was suddenly hugely painful to the touch. It didn’t persist but made me start to wonder why. It also appeared to be swollen. I had told the doctor that I hadn’t had steroids before, and I hadn’t in oral form, but when I had my cataracts removed, I had eye drops with steroids in, and the pressure in my eyes had gone sky high - and I was rushed into hospital and treated as an emergency.  So I decided this problem had come back, and my eyeball pressure was high, making the pain and swelling.  One of my bridge friends who also has glaucoma, had his eyeball explode suddenly, and went totally blind in that eye.

So I took my evening eye drops for my glaucoma early , and that seemed to help, but my fears were not allayed. So by suppertime, I had called 111, waited half an hour for an answer. She took details of my problems and said a Manchester eye hospital doctor (not where I had gone before) would call me back in an hour or so  So another hour of panic, but the doctor was first of all, annoyed they hadn’t sent my call to the hospital I had been seen at, and secondly pretty sure my problem would wait until 9 the next morning when I had an appointment for the correct  eye hospital.

For some reason I slept well that night.  But I was still nervous the next day when we went for the appointment. I told the nurse my history, and she looked it up, but when I saw the consultant (my daughter was allowed in because  we said I was not very good memory wise) he told us straight away that the steroids I had before were not the same thing and oral steriods did not increase eye pressure. I asked him to check it anyway, and he did.  He said the eye patch was not necessary as long as I used a gel type eye medicine every hour, so that was a huge benefit, and meant my sight was pretty normal.  They tested my eyes and they were about at the same level of vision.  He said they would see me again in 3 weeks to test something that it was too soon to test for now.  And that was that.

The next phase of this story won't happen until next Monday when I have an appointment in the Ear Nose and Throat department of the hospital to see how I am getting on.

I was greatly reassured and decided that this was something not too bad, that I could live with, and since have gone about my usual routine of activity, making the odd person cringe, but for the most part having lots of support. And everyone has a story of someone they knew, usually 50 years ago, who had the same thing. 

Nothing more now until next Monday when I visit the Ear Nose and Throat department of the hospital to see how I am progressing.