I heard the countdown start....

After a few years idly thinking about it and about a year seriously investigating it as an option, last October I decided that I was going to go ahead with corrective eye surgery. I wasn't going to be having laser surgery, so this wasn't something that was going to happen immediately. The phakic intraocular lenses I was having implanted are specially made to order and apparently take between 4-6 weeks to order in from America. I settled down for the wait and began to look forward to maybe having everything done by Christmas and certainly all sorted before my birthday in March. I knew I was going to need a couple of weeks to recover from the operation, which is done one eye at a time, with a gap of a week between each procedure, so I saved the holiday in preparation.

My birthday and the end of the holiday year at work came and went in March, and I had still heard nothing. Given that I had thought long and hard for four months before deciding to go ahead with the procedure, this delay was a touch frustrating. I'd made up my mind now, and I just wanted to get on with it. I chased the secretary of the professor of opthalmology who was supposed to be doing my operation. Irritatingly, I got a slightly curt reply informing me that she had already told me that the lenses would take 4-6 weeks to order. Yes, but weren't they ordered in October? Anyway. What could I do? I wanted this operation to be done by the very best person I could find, and if that person was taking his own sweet time getting my lenses, then so be it. I waited.

And I waited. 4-6 weeks my arse.

And then last week I finally got an email from the professor's secretary telling me that she hadn't forgotten about me, and look! she'd been chasing the manufacturer! I scrolled down the history of the email and I did indeed see that she had been in contact with the manufacturer wanting to know where my lenses had got to as the person after me had long since been done... and the response that they should be in the UK in early May. The professor's secretary proposed a date of 19th May for eye number one and 2nd June for eye number two, with a gap of two weeks between the two due to the Bank Holiday. Oh, and which eye did I want to do first?

19th May? As in 2 weeks away?

Oooh. Suddenly feeling very real.

As it happens, I asked a few questions about how quickly I could expect to recover and if it was likely to be okay to sit in a muddy field in Somerset so soon after the operations. The secretary didn't know, but she said that she'd check. That was Thursday last week. Today I received an email from her telling me that she'd messed up on three counts:

1) She'd forgotten that the professor was actually away for most of June
2) The lens delivery date was actually a bit vague to be booking firm appointments
3) oh, and perhaps getting mud in your eye isn't such a great idea.

How about July?

I took a deep breath. I've waited this long, so what's another month or so? Ok. 7th July for eye one and 14th July for eye two then.

Nevermind the crappy customer service here.... for which I am paying quite a lot of money, incidentally .... I will be having my first eye, probably my right eye, sliced open in almost exactly two months time. Just after the Iron Maiden gig at Twickenham.

Yikes.

I'm excited.

And a bit nervous.

Mainly excited though.

I am un chien andalusia
I am un chien andalusia
I am un chien andalusia