Today we were scheduled to go to an outreach, but after driving for 5 minutes, one of the optometrists-- who was on the phone-- told our driver to pull over. After a couple of minutes, we were told that some of us would go to the outreach and the others would go to surgeries.
We get to Crystal eye clinic, and it was a lot different than St. Thomas Eye Hospital.
St. Thomas was an enormous, 4 story building with the surgical theatre, consultation and check up rooms for patients, eye glass stores and a staff lounge floor. At Crystal, it was a small building off the side of a dirt road with a single security guard outside.
The clinic was one level with a few rooms including a waiting room, surgical theatre, 1 optometrist exam room and a staff room. Two of us observed surgeries at a time and we wore a smock like gown and rubber slide on shoes, a mask and hair net. (At St.Thomas we wore a hair net, mask, crocks and scrubs).
During the procedures, the surgeon removed a huge cataract from someone’s eye, proceeded to drop it on the floor and left it there. I got to stand next to that cataract on the floor for the rest of the surgeries. Hahahahahaha.
I was fascinated by some things I saw today. I saw a liquified lens, cataracts, glaucoma and something that caused white liquid to seep out of the eye after he punctured it. Ah. (sorry for the visual).
I also saw my first pediatric patients today. I almost leapt for joy once I realized that they were given general anesthesia as opposed to local anesthesia. Typically eye surgeries are done with local analgesic, and the patients can still hear and see during the surgery. They are only numbed in their eye, and in order to administer the anesthetic, the nurse has to give an injection into the eye while they can still feel. So that’s always super painful to watch.
The kids were really scared though and didn't seem to know what was going on.
We had an 8 month old baby who was screaming at the top of his lungs for about 45 mins pre-op, then he was taken into the room and given sleeping gas. It was slightly distressing, but in the long run a much better solution than local analgesics. I helped hold his hands when he was flailing and kept him on the table when he almost rolled off. It was a little difficult to emotionally process, but I felt so much peace knowing the life-changing benefits of the surgery he was about to have.
There was also a 7 year old girl named Precious. She previously had cataract surgery and came in for a follow-up operation to address a post-op complication, called a posterior capsular opacity. The doctor said normally adults have it removed with laser therapy, but it isn’t as easy on kids.
Before her anesthesia, she tried to get off the table and was really afraid. She tried to take the mask off and another nurse came and held her arms and legs to the table. I just stroked her arms and told her it was okay. The anesthesiologist was extremely skilled though and I had no concerns about any of the patients. All of the parents were super understanding about the whole process and I did my best to make sure the kids weren't afraid. I was also really grateful that they were getting the surgeries they needed at a young age.