Hospital tales or about getting blind and recovering my sight thanks to someone else's eye Part II

Things are not always what they seem to be. 

Ok we all know that. But are we really aware of the huge gap between what we think they are, what we see, and what they are (supposedly) in "reality"? 

When I had made an appointment with the surgeon for my cornea transplantation, I was so scared that I strongly believed I was going to die. I know it may sound funny, and exaggerated. But I knew it. It was not that I was afraid of having some complications during the surgery, and loose an eye, or that the intervention was especially dangerous and could cost my life. It was not the result of any reasonable thinking. It was just a diffuse feeling telling me that, inevitably, there would be no tomorrow after I'd have stepped into hospital. I was afraid of the hospital building itself, of the nurses, of the blood tests, of the needle they would stick into my hand for anesthesia. That fear could have killed me easier than anything else, I guess. However, once it was decided, I had no way out. People around me would try to cheer me up with reasonable arguments, in vain.  And no jokes were accepted, for I would instantly burst into tears. I felt like a dead man walking.

Getting into the lion's cage

Some part of me seemed to be more or less conscious in my delirium, because I didn't do anything to delay the operation term, and my sympathetic surgeon tried his best to speed things up. So less than 4 weeks after my first appointment with him, on a sunny morning, I was admitted at the ophthalmology department with a brand new pajama and mp3 player. I was white as a sheet and had "no blood pressure at all" (quoting the nurse who took it) but my mind was somehow more relaxed. As with anything unpleasant or scary I have to go through, the moment I'm facing it with no possibility to escape, I calm down. The in-patient unit is located on the top floor of one of the (huge) hospital site old buildings, so I had a great view on the city from my window and even a beautiful sunny terrace -where it was possible to smoke!- a few rooms away from mine. That, as well as the pills they gave me in the evening to have a good sleep, totally made my day.

High on drugs on a spaceship with aliens

The next day they woke me up at 6 in the morning and first made me swallow two pills.Then, I was given a pair of white stockings with patterns (I was told later they were compression stockings made to prevent embolism) and one of these surgical gowns they call in czech, who knows why, "little angel". Well I don't know if I looked like a little angel, but when I dressed up and saw myself in these white stockings, that shirt that I couldn't close in the front and the blue panties with navy anchors print I was wearing, I started to laugh out loud and  wished I had a camera to take a picture of myself. I was getting high on the pills and actually didn't stop laughing as they put me on a stretcher and brought me to the operation room.

There, I thought everything looked like on board of a Star Trek spaceship. I was welcomed by a jolly anesthetist,  who was joking about my surgeon being always late. Guess what? it made me laugh. I just had the presence of mind to ask her a very important question: "I am not going to wake up during the surgery, am I?" It was her turn to laugh and say "well you will certainly wake up, but only after the surgery!" My surgeon turned up, we greeted each other, and yet someone was telling me to count slowly up to ten, and to have sweet dreams... off was I to nowheristan...

Nowheristan: appr. one hour surgery under general anesthesia 

Corneal transplantation is a surgical procedure where a damaged or diseased cornea is replaced by donated corneal tissue in its entirety (penetrating keratoplasty- my case) or in part. 

After removing the damaged cornea, the donor tissue is sewn in place with two circular/starshaped stitches. 

I still have no idea about more surgical details (like how on earth do they sew in your eye???) but I'm  not curious to know at all before having the other eye fixed. 

Waking up and getting high again

I woke up in my room, I was dizzy, remembered the spaceship.. that was it: I had been kidnapped by aliens! I stood up to go to the bathroom, walked two meters, was stopped by a nurse who took my arm and said I was going to fall. I didnt see much, but made it there and back to my bed. I was slowly getting back to reality... until I suddenly felt a deep pain in my eye. I just had the reflex to grab the bell and squeeze it as strong as my pain was. Someone came, I felt an injection and I was off sleeping again...

I woke up in the afternoon, was advised not to eat, but hell, I was hungry!!! So I ate, and actually felt better.Then I spent some time talking frenetically to my mother and my sister on the phone about who knows what (yes, well, the truth is I cannot stop talking even right after a surgery...) and I fell asleep again.

Six hospital fairies

From then on, for about two days, because of a rare post-surgical complication (no, it was not enough that I had a rare genetic defect, I also had to have a weird reaction to the surgery...) I was put drops in my eyes every half an hour, (or was it every 15 mns?) day and night. Heard about the torture process when the person is not allowed to sleep? Well it was similar. It was a pain for me and a pain for the nurses who had to run all night long to drop antibiotics in my eye. As my infection was slowly dropping away, and the application of antibiotics became less frequent, things got obviously better. Music eased my moments of sorrow: Camaron, Fernanda y Bernarda  accompanied my nights with their quejio, while Celia Cruz washed away the tears caused by the first painful morning drop. Before the ward round at 7h30 every morning, I was already dancing in my room. Did I say earlier that I was scared of nurses ? I ended up loving them. I was lucky maybe but these were like fairies. Some were holding my hand when I was not feeling well, some were making me laugh - "kůzlátko, kůzlátko, otevři to očičko"-, some were even sharing their own lunch with me when I didn't like what the hospital served. 

Funny in-patient with exotic visitors

I wonder if I was the craziest patient staying at that hospital that spring. The unit was rather calm, as it was the end of the surgical season, and I kept on singing along with my mp3 player all day long as well as receiving exotic visitors. After the first two days, no one of the nurses or the other patient had any doubt when an African, Asian, or Mediterranean  person was stepping out of the elevator on our floor. They were all directed straight to my room. I was receiving alcohol free beer, sushi, thai food, french pastry, and my sister made a sensation when she entered with an Afro hairstyle specially made up to make me laugh. I was spoiled! 

I was sleeping on my lucky charms, and more than one nurse had a surprised look when they found a large Chinese coin with Buddha and a little pendant with the goddess Lakshmi under my pillow..To top it all, I was a rather non-serious patient (especially compared to most of the other older patients) and managed to make fun of everything, even of my doctor who was so kind. Well the day he accidentally hit his knee against his desk, I chuckled (I did feel a bit bad not to have retained my hilarity) and the nurse didn't help with her not convincingly severe remark "Come on don't laugh here, laugh in your room!" so I left groping my way and laughing to tears.

And the best was yet to come

I was released after 12 days, I was alive (surprise!) and my stay had changed all my perception of hospital care. Not that I wanted to stay, but I was in deep admiration for the dedication of the medical staff, from the surgeon who literally "opened my eyes", to the nurses at the hospital unit where I stayed. 

And the best was yet to come for, by then, my eye had remained swollen and closed and I had no idea of what things would look like, once I would see them with my new eye. 

I owe sincere thanks to Dr. Michalis Palos  and his medical staff at Ophtalmology department of  VFN in Prague for their care and for making me see things as I had never seen them before!

Part I : http://www.manikita.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/about-getting-blind-and-recovering-my.html

April in Seville or what spring can bring

"Lleva azahar, lleva olivas,
Andalucía, a tus mares. "
F.G. Lorca (Baladilla de los tres rios)

Spring unfolded in orange blossoms. Walking in Seville at this time of the year means walking with your nostrils wide open toward the sky, catching at every step the utterly pleasant scent of these tiny white flowers flying and falling around like snowflakes. With the azahar, came the Semana Santa, kicking off April's festivities. Did I say festivities? I did my first Holy Week "madrugada" this year and if the weather was rather moody, well at least I could see quite a few Virgins and Christs dancing their ways through the city. 

Last year I was waiting 4 hours for la Virgen de la Esperanza in the rain and she never came out. This time, it seems she wanted to make it up and she pursued us all night long on Holy Thursday. 

We saw her come out of her church in Triana, "en la gloria", under a rain of rose petals and a thunder of shouts "Trianeeeeeeeraaaaaaaa!!! Guapaaaaa!!!"  She was the dancing queen of the night, preceded and followed by a never ending cortege of cones, these "nazarenos" or "penitentes" who would accompany her during her approximately 12 hours stroll through the city center. The "capirote" or conic hat the penitents wear, which first reminds of the Ku Klux Klan fashion seems to come from the Spanish inquisition times, when heretics or other sinners were punished by the religious court and were  forced to wear one and  put under public humiliation. 

The link with the Ku Klux Klan is not clear as these are anti-catholic. But who cares in the end. They all look scary. 

"Tirititando de frio bajaban quatro gitanas por la orillita de un rio 

Tiritiritiritiri Tiritiritiritirititando de frio 
Luna que brilla en los mares los mares oscuros 
Ay luna tu no estas cansa de girar al viejo mundo 
Ay luna queate cormigo y aun no te vayas porque dicen que a veces se escapa el alma se escapa el alma" 

Camaron

So after La Esperanza danced her way to the Triana bridge, and after we had time to drink another couple of beers, and encounter the police and state the obvious (that they were liars for example), we moved to the other side of the river and  witnessed the surrealistic Semana Santa effect. At 6 am, the streets were crowded more than at midday, all bars and coffee shops open, kids, elderly, teenagers, all there, having coffees, eating, drinking beers...as if no one in Seville was sleeping. We had to stop at some point as another procession was crossing our way and we waited until we realised it was our Trianera again. Half an hour later, we moved two streets up, and here she was again! It was close to 8 am, it was cold, we were tired, literally tirititando de frio but decided to wait for the procession that was following her to the cathedral. And there, as the sun was rising, the magic happened, in this bizarre silence of dawn, El Cristo de los Gitanos appeared bending under a large cross. He was stunning in his pain, so touching as he swayed on a sad clarinet solo. A true moment of grace and pure beauty.

We followed him a bit, and went back to Triana, The sun was  high in the sky and on the bridge, people were already waiting for Esperanza to come back home. It was ten in the morning. Bedtime, finally. 

The next two nights were just as long, the Virgins and Christs were simply keeping us from sleeping. Strangely enough, El Cristo Resucitado was the one who attracted least interest. And as a matter of fact, he was rather boring. By the time he resurrected, the Sevillanos were already tired. Not like in Alhama de Murcia where he quite surprisingly decided to follow the global trend and dance samba to "Ai se eu te pego".

Guadalquivir, alta torre
y viento en los naranjales.

¡Ay, amor
que se fue por el aire!

Semana santa ended, my dear friend left and Sevilla returned to its relative tranquility. The wind kept blowing strong as if we were on the coast, swirling the orange blossoms. Spring time brought us the subtle guitar of Juan Ramon Caro, and a twirling Marco Flores. The New York Times talked about his magic "florid hands" and indeed, just like the azahar scent, his dance transported me in delight. Beauty is the name of his performance, blooming are his hands and perfect as nature is the slightest movement he does on stage, making his audience  smile steadily  for all the time of his show and even long after.

The wind was still blowing this sunday afternoon as we sat on the river bank that overlooks the Guadalquivir, dreaming of a true ocean breeze. Well, in our nostalgic mood for the sea, we ended up meeting a pirate who had lost his boat, and thus, was taking hostages at la Traviesa and releasing them against a glass of rum. The pirate made us laugh so much, as well as he did with all the other guests and people passing by the cafe. Me and Ale, temporary landlubbers, happily decided to join our kidnapper for more adventures. Since we do not have a boat yet, we can still  make a pirate incursion into the upcoming Feria. Or go there dressed in Indian saris and riding an elephant instead of a horse. 

Who knows what all can still happen in Seville in April, when you follow the orange blossom.

the one and only

“You can’t think how I depend on you, and when you’re not there the color goes out of my life.”
~ Virginia Woolf — to her sister