DALK [Surgery + 1 Week]

Since Sunday, I've had very little pain or discomfort in the left eye and it looks much better. Yesterday (Wednesday) the eye seemed a bit scratchier than normal but that could have been because of the eye lash stuck there, which Dr. Holland kindly removed today. Work isn't really a problem at all, and things are relatively back to normal.

Which brings me to the doctor visit today. There was an unusually long wait today for some reason. My eye appointment was at 9:10am and I didn't leave the office until about 10:45am or so. Dr. Holland is a very popular guy. The first resident I saw tested my eyes against the chart and noted marked improvement over last week. With the "pinhole" device I was able to read down a few lines on the chart. Keep in mind, this never would have been possible before. The fact that I can read anything at all is really quite a miracle. Just after wetting the eye (and if I focus hard enough) I can actually read book text at a reasonable distance from my eye. However, as the eye heals I can expect my vision to get slightly worse and then (hopefully) improve to a stable state. We also noticed my eye pressure had gone up just a bit.

Dr. Wang came in next and chastised me for not having gotten my Restasis. It had been held up in insurance approval and had just been released to me a few days ago. Honestly, my eye felt so good I just forgot about getting the Restasis. After all, the description said it was a medicine to make your ears tear up, and I already had wetting drops, but Dr. Wang assured me it was critical in against rejection. I hope I have not set myself back, but I don't think so. I have been religious about my eye drops and have been very protective of "Pablo." Anyway, Dr. Wang seemed happy with the progress.

Dr. Holland came in next and gave me a once over, also declaring his pleasure at my improved status. He (and Dr. Wang) said that the heightened eye pressure was likely a reaction to the Durezol, which is a steroid. Dr. Holland gave me a less-powerful steroid called Omnipred to see if that would help.

I go back in two weeks, and I hope to post some data on my improvement.

Here is my eye just a couple days after surgery. You can see the stitches to the graft. Looks messy, huh? I'd say my eye looks pretty pissed off right now.