Laser for John

Today was not a good day for either of us. A month ago I wrote a post about John's problem with his left eye. If you have not read it, I suggest you do so before reading this post.

John had an appointment at the Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital again and I went with him for support (and to see how much a package of Nuvarings would cost). We took a cab and arrived twenty minutes past ten. John had previously described the hospital to me and I now could confirm that it indeed looked like a hotel. Very fancy and a lot of comfortable couches and armchairs. He led me to the elevators and up to the fifth floor. Up there we struggled for a while as John was trying, less successfully, to navigate the maze of offices and dead ends.

This was a specialist hospital which means different specialists (companies) rent a medium sized office. The one we went into had a small room where people were waiting and two smaller rooms where examinations were being held. John went in and out of both of these rooms while I sat reading a book. Each time he was called in, a timid little Asian walked up and almost whispered Mr. John?

After one and a half hours we could leave. The news were that his retina is getting worse. Small holes have appeared and he will never recover from that. Another appointment was booked for tomorrow afternoon, this time for a laser surgery. The edge of his retina needs to be burned in place to not tear any further, the latter could cause him to loose all vision in the left eye completely. Still the surgery will not save the already lost vision. He will lose some periphery vision at the bottom of the eye.

There is a ninety-five percent chance that the surgery will go well and no more vision will be lost. The other five percentages means that it could get worse after a while. In this case I believe another surgery could be done and hopefully that would help. Thing is that it might detach a few years from now.

This is were we are right now. I will give you an update tomorrow and let you know how John feels. I give him all my support and love, and I hope you do too.

Do not let the picture scare you. The left eye has been examined and a strange substance was sprayed onto his eye to open the pupil. This way the doctor could use weird night vision goggles and other tools to take pictures of the inside of his eye. It sounded very interesting to me but to John it only gave a headache. Both of us could not stop laughing at the picture though, he looked really silly!

The title of this post is a tribute to John's love for lasers. He told me that each time the doctor mentioned it he started to giggle.