"Cataract surgery"

I had heard from lots of people, that there was nothing to worry about with cataract surgery, that it was a simple procedure. The information stated that it was a ‘painless procedure’, so what was there to worry about? The patient before me was a woman going in for her 2nd eye. I heard her say that when people asked how it was, she just said… “You will be fine.” I was reassured by this too.

When I went in to the operating theatre in a local GP surgery, I was told to lie down on a gurney,  I did. I found that I wasn’t entirely comfortable lying completely flat, so I raised my knees… With a slightly raised tone, the nurse said that I couldn’t do that. I explained that I was uncomfortable and she got a pillow to go under my knees. NHS pillows are flat as pancakes, so it really didn’t help. I told her that it hadn’t really helped. She folded it in half. It really wasn’t much improvement, but I accepted this was as good as it was going to get.

The consultant pushed the protective cover over my face and over my eye and pushed it into my eye socket and then pushed the eye clamp in, I exclaimed “Oh!” The surgeon asked if I was ok… I said, “Well, I hadn’t really expected to feel anything”. It felt like my eye was being gouged. It wasn’t excruciating, but it was more than just uncomfortable. The consultant then told me to be still and not to talk and that I needed to raise my chin (there was nothing to hold my chin or head in the right position). I was then told that I had to be even more still and that I was moving.

I thought that I was being still. I tried to find a meditation to help me to relax but I could only think of visualisations, perhaps these visualisations made my eyes move… perhaps I move my eyes more than other people, I don’t know, but I felt the surgeon was becoming frustrated with me. The consultant sighed several times & told me that I was breathing too fast and that I was raising my blood pressure.

The nurse said that I should try to focus on my breathing, so I started to count to 4 - on breaths in and 4 on breaths out. The surgeon sighed again and said that I must be still. I informed them that it felt like I was being still. I was then told that what I was doing was dangerous and that I had to be still for my own safety. I began to cry, silently, but I could feel my eyes prickling and tears rolling down my face and into my ears. I began to panic. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that I was terrified. I was in terror. I imagined my eye, open, with no lens. I started to fear that they would not be able to complete the surgery and I wondered what would happen then. I thought of the danger of Covid and hospitals and fear, fear, fear. As soon as the surgeon stopped and I was told I could get up, I sobbed. I also apologised several times, believing at that moment that I had let myself down and let the surgeon down.

I was moved out to another room and the next patient was taken in. My hair was dripping, not just damp, dripping wet, from all the saline that had been poured into my eye. The nurse said they would get me a towel, but there wasn’t one and they mopped at my hair with a tissue. I asked if my husband could come in to get me. I was told that they would prefer to limit the number of people coming into the building because of Covid.

I am not a feeble person by any means, but I did not feel that I could get out on my own, so the nurse agreed for me to call him. He came in for me and took me out to the car. I sobbed as I tried to explain what had happened. He took me home. My heart was racing, I was shivering. I went to bed in my clothes and under a duvet and still could not get warm. I think I was in shock. I slept for about 4 hours.

It is now over 3 months on and the vision is still not clear in that eye. I have been back to the clinic as I still have blurred vision in the eye and have been informed that there is fluid on the eye under the lens. I have since been putting stinging eye drops into my eyes 4 times a day, for three months. At the moment, my vision is worse than when I began. I have been reluctant to share my story because I know that most people have a good experience when they have their cataracts done and I am concerned that I might put someone off that could benefit from having this done.

I have also been reluctant to make a complaint about this as we are in the middle of a pandemic and I don’t want to take valuable resources of time and focus, but this service is NOT technically NHS, it is a private company that the NHS uses to provide the service and I think that the poor service that I received was because the consultants are running a conveyor belt of patients to maximise the number that they can treat in the minimum time. I think that this is a reasonable thing to do, but not if this compromises on the service to and the experience of the patient. It felt like a 3rd world experience.