Janet
I really ought to write my experiences down, i did in fact promise i would do that for the RNIB in the UK because I owe them a debt for the information they provided to me when I could not find it elsewhere, and although i felt a bit of a fraud contacting them, they made it clear they did not see it that way, as if I did not have the treatment, I would be in all probability fully qualified to make use of their services in a few years, and if i did, then by THEIR judgement the risk of going blind was there, and thus I was in no way fraudulent in seeking their counsel.
Of course, they may have an absurdly low threshold for making that judgement or they may have said that to make me feel better, but I think there are two things I would say in response to your post.
The first is that having now had both eyes operated on for cataract removal I can say with absolute authority that at EVERY stage it was made clear to me that there were risks; I suppose I deserved what I got, because I asked the man to be blunt, because I was brought up by parents who were anything but, and this made problems all of its own.
In short. I was told outright, although not in this blunt a way, that a certain percentage of operations go wrong, that the things that go wrong were a,b and c, that the chances of that were x, y and z in the typical patient, but that my case made it TEN TIMES more likely that i would have these complications because the sight was so myopic to start with.
In my right eye, I did inded have the most serious of complications, requiring emergency surgery, and my condition was made all the worse by the idiot at the eye clinic to whom i was told to refer in the first instance assuring me the symptoms of my DETACHED RETINA were in fact entirely normal and nothing ot worry about. When my optician did my clinical assessment, did not like what they saw, refered me back to the surgeon and he took a look, he went absolutely incandescent.
The surgery for the drtached retina carried a 30% risk of failure after which a subsequent attempt could be made with an icncreased risk but the end game was indeed blindness, as was the end game if i refused the surgery.
AT NO POINT was I ever told the surgery was risk free, far from it.
The second thing i would say is I was told outright both face to face by the surgeon and in writing in the information given that if I declined thwe surgery, the progress would be slow, but inexorable, and blindness, or as near as blindness as made no difference, was the inevitable outcome.
In fact the welsh NHS is so badly managed and the delays for treatment under our devoved government do long delayed, both I and a friend of mine went blind waiting for the treatment and lost our jobs (we had previously been rather high level IT consultants, but it's not easy to install a nuclear power station, or build a frigate's radar, or assemble a tank when you canlt see where the reactor rods, radar mast, or gun barrel are, is it ...)
I would stress the way I was given this information was not remotely as bluntly as I have stated here, but I was left in no doubt of the risks, and the consequences of action and inaction alike, and I chose to authorise the procedures knowing the risks,and knowing the alternatives.
Now, I have seen some advertisements on the web, that on the face of it seem to offer cataract type surgery as an alternative to contact lenses ! I hope I misread them, for that seems ot me to trivialise the risks in the way your post suggests does occur, if these are what I think them to be, then yes, I am concerned, but again, I would reiterate in the processes I have undergone, no-one has tried to tricvialise the procedure nor the risks involved.
I would also say the two people i do not blame in any regard for the procedure that went awry are the surgeon and his anaesthetist; i'm sure in american circles lawyers would have made their lives hell, but I do not hold them to blame for what they candidly state was a problem in the process. (In my right eye, either a physical or a pressure injury during the anesthesia or the procedure itself damaged a capillary, and the blood, and more to the point the plasma, that leaked started to prise the retina off) I file this unfortunate event very much under "s**t happens" rather than "malpractice", and although I needed further surgery, thankfully it worked and left me with perfect clarity to the extent i can see individual branches in the tops of trees several miles away, in the months agter the emergency vitrectomy Isaw for the first time the hundreds of shades of golden brown in the autumn leaves that adorn the deciduous trees of the welsh hills in the early autumn and i can see military aircraft in the sky by the disturbance their hot engines make against the cold air in which they fly BEFORE it becomes a contrail ... In short, I have no regrets at all.
As someone born myopic -10 in one eye and -6 in the other, I'm looking forward to trying golf now i can see with the naked eye just how lousy a player i would be if I played the game ... I'll end by saying in the situation I have found myself, that sort of sense of humoir is invaluable.
If you face the procedure, I hope you have a far less complicated path to walk than mine, but my final words to you would be that almost the worst thing that could possibly go wrong went wrong for me, and several other things did as well along the way, yet here I am today, able to stand in my front garden and see the top branch of a tree four or five miles away move as a bird lands on it. Admttedly as hawk, not a sparrow ...
