Cornea Transplants

This morning, as with every morning, I am amazed at how well I can see when I put my contacts in. I am so thankful for the cornea transplants and even more thankful to the families who in the midst of sorrow agreed to organ and tissue donation.

On the way to work this morning a family from Omaha was on the radio. They have been in St. Louis with their 10 year old daughter since early August. Their daughter had a heart transplant on December 2 or 3rd. She is already out of the hospital and anxious to see here sisters again and talk with her friends at school. They talked about the shock of seeing her after surgery and seeing her pink lips and how they and the tissue under her nails were no longer blue from lack of oxygen. They seemed to be a wonderful family and it was a joy to listen to them.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was told I was going blind during my first appointment with my new eye physician. It ended up I had a heredity disease, Fuch’s Dystrophy. That is a disease where the one cell, hexagon shaped cells, that pump the water out behind the cornea are dying. They don’t reproduce and the other cells attempt to take on the additional load and become what appears to be big blogs. The physician’s office was actually able to take a picture and I saw the perfectly shaped cells and those whose shapes had changed. Ultimately, as these cells continued to die I would end up with blisters that would break. In the end I would have the white eye/iris that one may associate with a blind person. It was a very scary time for me. My vision was never great with a lazy eye and I could not imagine being blind.

I remember being on the donor list for my first surgery. (They only do one eye at a time in case of infection.). The day I was scheduled for surgery I was at work waiting for the call that a donor cornea was available. I remember getting the call and calling my wife. I then went home and got ready and left for the hospital, The Porter Hospital in Denver, The Center for Sight.

After we checked in they got me ready for surgery. They started giving me diuretics. After a period of time they put an instrument over my eye which would flatten it. Before they took me into surgery, they put me to sleep to deaden my eye and then woke me up. I would be awake for the surgery. I had a cover over me with an oxygen hose directed at my nose. I remember hearing the doctor and nurses talking about their kids, jobs, etc.

The surgery would last approximately 3 hours. Sometime during the surgery I heard the physician state something about an injection. I then felt this pain in my eye. A slicing feeling. Then I heard that phrase again and felt an even more pain. When I heard him the third time I wanted to let him know I could feel it. Well for those of you, who know me, know that I’m really shy. All I could come up with was a little moan at which the doctor asked if I could feel it to which I said yes. He told me I should have told him earlier and proceeded to deaden my eye again.

After surgery I went to recovery and then home. I would have to come in every day for a week to see the doctor. My mom also came to Denver with her husband to bandage my eye and take me to the doctor. I had a metal screen over my eye to make sure I did not rub it as I would rub off the cornea and would ultimately be blind.

As I think back on this, I can’t help again thinking that my working at the 24th Evac in Vietnam happened for a reason. Would I have been able to manage this surgery and diagnosis without having been in Vietnam? Did that experience give me inner strength I didn’t have? And it was difficult not to think of my brothers and sisters in Vietnam who paid a price or the ultimate price. When I think of that, nothing can compare those valiant soldiers and how they suffered.

What process takes place after such a surgery? Stay tuned.