I don’t suppose the procedure is much different here in the UK, but my experience may be a point of comparison.
The optometrist in my local chain optician warned me a cataract was developing, and suggested about eighteen months ago that she could give me a referral, but I put it off: the news was full of stories about post-Covid stresses and backlogs in the NHS, and the cataract was in my weaker eye and I could manage fine with the other eye and my varifocals .
Eventually I asked for the referral last June, and of the choices offered opted for the leading eye hospital here. What I didn’t know was that straightforward outpatient procedures like this are handled by a range of different local sub-units, and they’d allocated me to one an hour and a half away in a bit of north London I didn’t know.
I was offered a date in August for the initial assessment, which they cancelled. I asked in October what the chances were, but they offered somewhere even more inconvenient to get to, so I opted to wait, and got an appointment just over a week ago: everything tested and re-tested, and then they offered me a date for surgery the following week (yesterday morning, as it happens).
They gave me some drops to put in at 15-minute intervals in the hour before arriving, which took a bit of planning round the points where I changed buses and trains (and they also wanted a negative Covid test, preferably taken that morning).
Again they punctiliously checked my name, d.o b. and which eye was to be operated (and at each stage thereafter), explained again the pros and cons, and something about the procedure itself.
There weren’t many people waiting and I was led into the anaesthetist about an hour after arriving. I’d been dreading the thought of needles anywhere around the eyes, but of course he had all the distraction techniques - relaxed chat and getting me to look at a corner of the ceiling so that I couldn’t see the needle. The proverbial “sharp scratch” and that was that done.
Then into the theatre proper, where again the “small incision” to start the process was over in a second. Thereafter it was a slightly tedious sequence of bright lights from different angles (at one point, I could swear I could see my eyelashes in sharp definition from the inside), machine noises from the ultrasound and whatever else they had, water and wiping away the debris. It took maybe 20-30 minutes in all, and then back to the waiting area.
The nurse there offered me tea and biscuits, and ran through the guidance/advice on what to and not to do (no swimming, contact sports or cutting onions!), plus two sets of drops and an eye-guard to wear at night (they’d warned in advance that I’d need to have surgical tape in stock). The dressing could come off later that afternoon and then I was to start two weeks of both drops, then four weeks of diminishing doses of the anti-inflammatory one.
That same nurse also asked me what it all felt like, though whether this was because she genuinely didn’t know what happened, or as some kind of disguised feedback, I don’t know.
Anyway, I got a taxi home in time for a late lunch
It’s not restored perfect unblurred sight in that eye, but they did warn me that was likely because that eye is slightly smaller than the other, and I’ll need correction for it just as before.
I go back in late March for the final assessment and lens prescription.
