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Fear of the Knife

Posted October 2nd, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

I always swore I would never let any surgeon near my face with a scalpel or a laser – thus my age-appropriate weathered look.   But I’d known for months that I needed cataract surgery.  My right eye had more or less stopped working, so reason finally prevailed:  since I was losing vision in that eye in any case, what more did I have to lose?

I made the appointment, did all the testing (20/240 in that eye, so yes, a new lens just might be called for), made the date for the ‘procedure’… and then went through three weeks of terror.

Everyone I knew who’d had cataract surgery – and only once I started talking about it did I find out how many people had, from close friends to casual acquaintances to my own brother — assured me there was absolutely nothing to worry about.  It’s a snap, they said.  It’s over in ten minutes.  You won’t feel a thing.  You’ll be so glad you did it.

But while reason said that they knew what they were talking about, terror kept yelling “Yes but…“  and “What if…?”

But someone’s going to stick things in my eye.  He’s going to suck the lens out of it.  He’s going to poke a new one in.   What if his hand slips just a millimeter?  What if I move at the wrong moment?  What if…

Then last Wednesday, the day before surgery, I prostrated myself full-length on the floor of the Pilates studio and begged a fellow mat-class student who’d had the procedure to tell me she’d been scared beforehand.  She looked down at me in astonishment.  “But of course I was!” she said.  “I was terrified for weeks.”

It was such a relief.  The terror was still there, but at least I no longer felt a total fool for feeling it.  It was normal.  It was rationally irrational.  I wasn’t a freak of wimpishness after all.

So yes, the surgery took place;  no, I felt nothing (I’d stuck my arm out begging for the sedative the moment I walked in), though I did see some beautiful colored lights;  and now, two days later, I’m experiencing the somewhat disconcerting feeling of having the use of two eyes instead of one.  This’ll take some getting used to, but it feels like it’ll become the new normal in just a few days.

And I realize now why everyone told me not to worry.  They were simply trying to calm me down.  To reassure me.  To tell me it’d be okay.  They were being kind and supportive and doing what friends do.

It’s just that they’d left out an essential  phrase.

If only they’d prefaced everything they’d said with “Yes, I was terrified too, for weeks beforehand, but…”  then I might have believed them when they said there was nothing to be terrified of.  Well, believed them a little bit, at least.

Or maybe they weren’t terrified?  Maybe it’s just me and my fellow Pilatesian (do only wimps do Pilates?).  Maybe everyone else is courageous and/or stoic and/or blithely unaware of the damage scalpels and lasers can do?

Maybe I really am a wimp?

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File under: existence, technology | Tagged: Tags: cataracts, courage, eye surgery, terror | 4 Comments
  1. Pietra says:
    October 2, 2010 at 5:50 pm

    Well, Lesley, you have me! I would never have made it to the surgery sober and then, of course, they couldn’t have done it …….
    Mazel tov!
    Now you can keep an eye on things!

  2. Jonathan Omer-Man says:
    October 3, 2010 at 4:54 pm

    Well, first of all there was don’t be scared, now there is don’t worry. As your veteran by 10 days, let me tell you that for the first week you will be a fanatic about eye drops every four hours. But then you will forget one round. BUT DON’T WORRY: your new lens won’t pop out and plop into the lentil soup! Just don’t do it too frequently. Anyway, congratulations! Jonathan

  3. Lynn Rosen says:
    October 3, 2010 at 4:59 pm

    Yikes! Cataract surgery. The mere S word drives me into the epizooties. And yet, having gone through the terrors, I, too, am one of those who can counsel “You’ll be glad you did it.” And I can counsel twice since both eyes are now functioning with amazing clarity. You did not wimp alone, medear.There are plenty of us out there who shiver at the thought of anyone coming at us, especially in the eye, AND with a sharp stick! Congratulations and don’t hesitate to go under the sharp stick again if need be.

  4. The Books She Carried « The Accidental Theologist says:
    November 13, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    […] Fear of the Knife […]

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