Bionic, No, Banal Man – Part 2

When you grow up playing football at a decent standard, going to a competitive school, studying at Oxford and then working for Accenture for 10 years, you (or anyone else) don’t really leave yourself much time to be normal. However I honestly couldn’t have been happier than when I sat up from the operating table this morning after my eye surgery and heard Dr. Gauthier-Fournet say to me, “everything has gone fine, your operation was very banal”. I am banal, ordinary, boring! I can assure you that when it comes to matters of eyesight, then that suits me just fine! At that moment, if I hadn’t been so scared that it might have negatively impacted them, I could probably have even started crying my eyes out. As I sit here on my computer only a few hours later, wearing my Steve Wonder style sunglasses with my vision already massively improved (I keep having to remind myself that I don’t have my contact lens in), I am already confident that taking the plunge to have my eyes LASIK’d (Laser In Situ Keratomileusis) was the right choice.

Thankfully after I’d taken the decision to have the operation and had had the initial consultation at the start of January, I didn’t think too much about the whole thing. It wasn’t very “real” even when I was putting eye drops in three times a day earlier this week. It still wasn’t very real even as my friend Laetitia (what a super Mother Hen figure she turned out to be today!) picked me up at 8.30, and drove me 30 minutes to the eye hospital. The long wait after checking in just seemed like any other ordinary long wait, as did sitting in the patient’s waiting room after I’d donned yet another hospital night shirt, plastic shoe covers and a rather fetching little plastic shower cap. The sounding of the fire alarm which interrupted the rather annoying “let’s not offend anyone” Tracey Chapman style music in the background, was something of a relief, especially because the pragmatic French just carried on as if nothing had happened. However, shortly afterwards the nerves did indeed strike. Now it had started to get real. That said those nerves were pretty short lived because a young lady who had just had her operation came out and sat down next to us. She seemed to still be alive, and she seemed to still have her sight, indeed it was noticeably better than it had been 10 minutes earlier. When I asked her what had been wrong with her eyesight beforehand, she then proceeded to list a whole plethora of optical impairments. I stopped her after the fourth, my confidence had already been sufficiently buoyed – if they had managed to fix that blind coot then my operation was going to be a stroll in the park. Whilst I still couldn’t describe myself as being blasé by this stage, I did manage to sigh something that resembled relaxed relief. Unfortunately that was also short lived as the nurse came back two minutes later and proceeded to put some final drops in my eyes which stung like mild chilies. Two minutes after that I was then led to the operating theatre which was about 20 meters away. The operation itself was short, but sufficiently uncomfortable to be memorable. There was no arm round the shoulder, let’s look at your papers again before a final “into the breach once more” cup of tea, it was, “hello again, right lie down, O’Brien, Aidan right eye, focus on the flashing green light”. By the time I pointed out to him that I was here for both eyes, he had already inserted the little plastic discs that were to keep my eye lids where they needed to be, and telling me that yes he understood that, but that he was going to start with the right eye. Oh yes, well I’ll just shut up then and hold on for dear life (really nurse, there is no need to pin my arms down – haven’t you seen the nail marks I’ve already left in the handles either side of the bed?). I desperately tried to do everything to focus on that flashing green light although I couldn’t help but be surprised by the continued presence of the doctor. I thought it was “the machine” that did everything rather like when having an x-ray taken? There was however too much stuff going on which prevented me from working out whether or not I was reassured or concerned by the doctor’s continued presence. On reflection I think the biggest difference between this and last week’s operations (both under local anesthetic), was that hands and arms feel and the eyes see. When my arm was under local anesthetic its ability to feel was taken away. However even though the eyes were unable to feel, the anesthetic did not remove its primary sensory purpose of seeing. As a result I was a lot less serene this week – there was definitely no chance of falling asleep as I did last week and not just because of those bloody plastic discs.

At the end of the operation I grasped eagerly at my “banal report card” and tentatively started to believe that the immediate visual improvement I was seeing might actually be real. Obviously the result improves over the coming hours and days, but as I sat down again in the waiting room I quietly completed my little personal mental checklist; blind YES/NO, improved vision YES/NO, and on coming out with one YES and one NO (in the right order of course), I offered up a little prayer of thanks. That was washed down with a complimentary croissant and hot chocolate (yes, this is France still), and then I picked up my now redundant glasses before completing all the necessary administrative papers, and a final check-up to make sure that the flap on the lens that had been cut during the operation was sitting flat and now ready to start the healing process. 

The drive back home was lit up with street signs that sparkled with clarity and crisp letters. If there hadn’t been the risk of an exchange of nasty microbes which might have put the recovery of my eyes at risk, then I could have kissed my friend and chauffeur Laetita who had offered moral support and waited patiently for me throughout the whole morning. It is clear to me that the permanent optical improvement massively outweighs the inconvenience of a weekend of Steve Wonder sunglasses that make me look like the octogenarians that are everywhere to be seen in Biarritz (in fact I’m almost even looking forward to going to church on Sunday so I can “be one of them”). And although the whole operation cost in the region of 2500 euros, roughly half of that will be reimbursed by French health insurance companies. Amazing really when you think about it.

Phew, it’s over, job done. We're almost at the end of January and the physical stuff has been sorted out seemingly successfully, now I need to start working out what surgical interventions exist for my various personality disorders…