Lord of the Ring and Lady of the Shelves ...

The two accomplishments achieved last week were:

David's left eye was operated on in Wellington Hospital (for free, yippee!!):

• He had a vitrectomy to remove fluid from the back of his eye to significantly lessen the chances of a recurrence of the Acute Malignant Glaucoma he'd suffered just before we left for the UK back in April - it's been being managed with eye drops since then;
• Keith inserted a plastic ring in the eye to hold everything (I'm not sure what, so we will go with everything ...) steady. David's left eye has nystagmus, i.e. it wobbles from a birth injury, with the result that his zonules are weak (look that one up 😏 - the eye is an extremely fascinating piece of evolution)
• Following the vitrectomy, Keith removed the cataract and replaced it with a new lens;
• The surgery took about 2 hours but he was out for the count for about 3.5 hours all up - he tends to take the opportunity for dreamless sleep to extremes, I think.
• He's now on drops 4 times a day, 2 of one each time and one of the other. His pupil is slowly decreasing in size after having Atropine drops twice a day for 8 months. Keith said it takes about a fortnight for the effects to wear off. I'll be interested to see if his heart rate increases as the other drop he was on had a beta blocker to assist with keeping the pressure down. Amazing how 2 drops a day can have that effect, isn't it?
• He's recovering well and the only sign he's been operated on is that his eye is slightly bloodshot - from the 3 probes that were inserted. But that is really only visible when I pull the lid back to put the drops in. 

Here he is in second stage recovery - sitting up, drinking tea and eating sandwiches. He was very dehydrated and couldn't make enough saliva for a while, so sandwiches weren't an easy eat.

We had thought that he may be kept in overnight, but there was pressure on beds so we happily went home. We had the offer of a bed at Adrian and Errol's - the kind guys who put me up back in April when David's AMG flared up so dramatically and kept him in hospital. But we decided that we would head back to Waikanae, and get up very early for the post op appointment that was scheduled for about 7.45am.

So after an early night, we left home about 5.30am and had a clear run in, and had time for breakfast at Columbus Coffee before being Keith's first appointment of the day. We left the hospital at about 8.30am and were back in Waikanae by 10.15-ish, having stopped at Moore Wilson's in Tawa to do the bulk buying of muesli ingredients and a few other bits. So it certainly pays to go in to the city very very early!

Bruce and Gary had arrived home the previous day from their 28 day cruise between Rome and Singapore with friends Mark and Chris (who we met in Norfolk last year). So we called in to see them - they have been missed!

Both of them are a bit poorly at the moment - they both came home with colds, or came down with them in the first 24 hours of being home. We know they aren't well, because they didn't do Saturday breakfast and didn't go away for the weekend as planned. Instead they called in to see us in the early afternoon after a trip to the doctor for Gary. He lay down on our couch and napped while we chatted. After a glass of our magic vegetable juice and a cheese scone, I sent them home to go back to bed.

The second of the accomplishments is that I have finished putting the non-slip runner/silicone matting on the shelves in the motorhome and replaced some of the contents. I decided that the drawers I used to have stuff in are redundant, as they won't move with the non-slip stuff in place, but nor will they be easy to pull out to extract stuff - frustrating is much more likely, I reckon, as I'd have to reposition the non slip stuff each time - and how would my level of patience for repetitive actions cope with that, I ask myself. So I have put things directly on the shelves. It does mean there is more flat space to put things as I can use the whole width of the shelf.

The implements are still in a drawer as they are too rattly by half! I have plonked a bag of bubble wrap on top of them to stop them being too bouncy and noisy. There's a lot of stuff to go back in the cupboard - food in particular. I am thinking a total rearrangement of cupboards and shelves in the motorhome is called for ...

We will see if they stay in place as we travel. We are going away to the Wairarapa for two nights later this week to visit friends, as we have a couple of follow up appointments at the hospital and cannot stray too far yet.