Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

I barely had time to sit down yesterday. I'm pretty mellow today though.
I got up earlier than normal (but later than the rest of mankind in this time zone. Mum went back to the hospital to collect her eye drops and to be told what to do. The day before, after the operation they told her that she had to lay on her side for 50 minutes then stand for 10 and repeat every hour. Apparently this is because there is gas inside the eye and doing this will manipulate the gas into pushing against the right part of the eye to help it heal better. I doesn't make much sense to me but hey, I'm not an eye doctor am I. If that's what they've told her to do then that's exactly what I'm making her do. We couldn't do it much when she first got back from hospital and we tried to do it yesterday, I was policing her very strictly, timing her with my watch and setting the alarm for every hour so I knew when she should get up. I even made her stay upstairs for half of the day because getting downstairs and back up added another 2-3 minutes to the time. I've forbidden her television, threatening to cut the cable if she tries to watch it. Anything she misses I'll let her watch online later once she's better (She'll be very behind with Eastenders so I'll probably be on BBC iplayer for a whole day at some point).
A lot of things were going on yesterday. I was trying to boil some water before she used her eye drops. It says that if you're eyelid is sticky or crusty you should wipe it with cooled boiled water. It makes sense. Boiling will sterilise the water and the tiniest scratch on the eye can get infected if you're not careful. So I've no doubt an eye with stitches is in real danger of infection. I also boiled a little glass bowl to hold the water in. In the end we only got the drops in twice. They need to be put in 4 times a day. She had 3 different drops and the hospital staff kindly colour coded them. The pink and yellow ones must be kept in the fridge at 2-8 degrees C and the green ones can be kept at room temperature. The green ones need to be shaken before use. The yellow and green ones must be used 4 times a day for 2 weeks. The green ones must be used over following weeks but in smaller doses. The pink ones must be used twice a day for 1 week and seem to be the most potent. I suspect the green drops to be anti-inflammatory. Her eye looks pretty disgusting but it looks better than it did yesterday, it's a little less red today and she can open her eyelid a little further. The eyelid is still quite swollen but again, it's better than yesterday. I cleared a space in the bathroom for treatment time. I even stuck the instructions they gave her on the bathroom wall for quick and easy reference. I cleared a space in the fridge for the pink and yellow eye drops. I was quite obsessive about the boiled water. If it didn't look clean enough I did it again. Besides adhering to mum's hourly get up and lay down schedule I had to take out the dog for her morning, afternoon and evening walks, set things up for eye medication time, make tea and toast when required (She'd have done it herself but like I said, I'm policing her very strictly) and find a suitable time to do a little shopping. It's been a very long time since I was so busy. Things are calmer today though. I'm so grateful that I had the sense to prepare the way I did. I'd been worried about mum sleeping without protection for the eye. You know, when you wake up your eyes might itch so you'll rub them. Rubbing is a definite no no after eye surgery. Also I was worried that she might rub it in her sleep or roll over and hit it or press it against her hand in her sleep or all kinds of things. I thought it was rather silly not to protect it. When I went up to bed (quite late I must add)and while cleaning my teeth I glanced at the notes I'd stuck to the wall. My eye was caught by the word except which was in bold and underlined, so I read the whole thing. Other advice #4 you may engage in your regular daily activities (including sexual activities) except for swimming, contact sports and heavy lifting. Ha I thought. Would you really want to engage in sexual activities with an eye like that, unless you did it in the dark perhaps, or from behind of course. I assure you the eye is a pretty nasty thing to look at at the moment. Then I read all of the other advice. #1 don't rub your eye. #2 Wear your protective eye shield when you go to bed for two weeks. Eye shield. Eye shield? Aha! Eye shield! (I remembered this because when mum came home after the operation she had a bandage over the eye and a thick plastic eye patch with holes in surgically taped to her face. She went to bed with it on. When she went back in yesterday they removed the bandage, gave her her drops, instructed her on what to do and answered questions. She came home with some paper bags and sheets of paper. The sheets of paper being instructions for laying properly, eye drop dosage, other advice and emergency information). The bags containing her eye drops and an empty looking one. earlier in the day I'd peered into it to find the plastic eye patch and wondered why on earth they'd given that back to her. And now we come to the realisation. That's clearly the eye shield to wear at night.) I woke her up, brought her out to read the paper and went to get the plastic eye patch and Sellotape to stick it on with (we had nothing else to use for the purpose). I'm very relieved that I pieced all that together despite being so tired. You see, I'm very concerned for her eye because they told her that it might not be fixed this time round and that she might need another operation. They were also quite surprised as there was evidence that her retina had detached before but healed itself. I fail to see how she wouldn't have noticed though. Oh well, who knows what mysteries the human body holds.
The dog was pretty stressed yesterday too. She went out late yesterday and couldn't understand why mum didn't take her out in the morning as usual. Also add in the fact that I was on my feel all day (something she's never seen before) and that I kept Mum upstairs for much of the day it's no surprise that she'd get confused. When mum came down Yuki was so happy to see her but had her ears back a lot. She's much calmer today. I've devised a routine for the eye drops and things are calmer today. I went out to do a little more shopping and to get some surgical tape for the eye shield (I couldn't account for how clean the Sellotape was since I use it for a lot of different projects) and some blister plasters for my heels (I'm breaking in a new pair of boots and they press on the backs of my heels. Dr Martens boots would you believe. These are bound to be good and hard wearing. My old shoes that I've had of quite a few years now are pretty poor now. They've no grip on the soles, have holes in the bottoms and are not water resistant any more.)
I worked out a nice schedule for the eye drops and prepared the water early on before the drops were due. I'm quite pleased. I like very much for things to be structured and to have a strict timetable for important things. As I've said, I'm much calmer today and I've been continuing Chi-chan's bunny suit. If I can I'd like to make one for his sister too and we'll give them to them at Christmas. I can make Chi-chan big bunny and Usa-chan little bunny. That ties in quite well since Usa-chan is what I plan to call my niece. Usa is bunny, or thereabouts, usagi is rabbit. Before Chi-chan was born, when I wondered what to call him, I thought that Usa-chan would be cute if he were a girl but he ended up being Chi-chan. When I found out Chi-chan's name I was even more determined to give him a nickname when I met him. His name's Hilton, a combination of his parent's names Hilary and Tony. As soon as I heard that I thought really? That's the best they could come up with? Well, I guess it's unusual at least. I've noticed a lot of unusual names these days. Come on, people do give their children some stupid names these days. You can't help thinking, oh, that child'll get picked on in school. Usa-chan's name isn't much better. Pippa. What are these people on? Apologies to any Hilton's or Pippa's out there or who like the names but when I think of an adorable newborn baby the first names I think of sure as hell aren't Hilton and Pippa. Then again, when you think about it Chi and Usa aren't the kind of names you'd expect either but there's one big difference, I chose them purely as nicknames. Before a baby is born I like to call it something.
Well, I'll be going now, lots of knitting to do.
Bluebiird out.