Happy Diwali..

It had been weeks since I last scribbled something in this blog.. Been very busy with my studies. It had been a very hectic week. Lectures and Clinical visits had been driving me mad all week. Oh..I cant really say enough how very relieved I am to reach the week end. Anyways..Its Diwali on Monday and I'm going home tomorrow. I'll be back on Tuesday..
So My Advanced Diwali wishes to all my blogsville friends..Have a great Diwali all.. :)

My new 'Laser' eyes..

I'm back with my new 'lasik' eyes.. Thanks a lot to everyone who wished me luck for the surgery.. It all went fine.

I was a bit tensed when I presented myself at the hospital half an hour before my scheduled time. I was the first to go and I was the first on the surgery list as well. Soon after, an elderly British couple joined us. As we were waiting we had a nice long chat and I came to know that the English lady has already done the laser surgery months ago and now her husband was about to do the surgery as well. She told me that there is nothing to be scared of and the surgery would be very simple. That really helped to raise my spirits a bit.

But..Gosh..! the surgery wasn't that easy at all..! The surgery was done under local anesthesia..they just put anesthetic drops into the eyes, and that's all. The prob is that you have to witness the whole surgical procedures on your eyes with the same eyes and you cant even blink or move your eye balls..Ohhh..that was verrry uneasy to me. They placed a glass shield like rim between the eyelids so that I wouldn't be able to blink... I felt really uncomfortable as I watched the surgeon cut a flap in my cornea and all the rest of it..I wont say it was painful..but really that was some uneasiness beyond words..Sometimes I thought I felt pain, but I might have imagined it..I don't know.

My right eye was done first and as I lied down there waiting for the surgeon to start the next eye, I felt really scared this time..because I knew what was coming..That made the second surgery even worse..But it seemed to finish a bit quicker than the first one..

After the surgery, they just told me to wear the sun glasses and wait for sometime. Then after a while they checked my eyes again , said I'm perfectly okay, and I shall go home for the night. They told me to come for a check up on the following afternoon. Before I left the hospital that English lady told me to be prepared for a tough night. How very correct she was..!. That was the worst night in my life. I felt like as if thousands of knives were inside my eyes and I couldn't even fully open my eyes. My vision was all blurred and wet. I felt terrible.

When I woke up next morning, it was all fine, except that my eyes felt a bit heavy and sticky..But otherwise my eyes felt like new. My vision was damn clear!!. I was so happy that I instantly forgot the previous day's pain.. The surgeon checked my vision and said Its all very fine. As I was told, my eyes are very dry now and I have to follow up the drops to avoid eye ulcers. Now the post operative follow up is the tricky part.. I'm having to apply 3 different drops every 4 hours, avoid getting into dusty areas and also having to wear the cooling glasses whenever I go outdoors. Also I have to be careful enough not to rub my eyes. Well..so far so good and I'm now back to my routine life which is full of lectures, books, hospital..and all..

Hope my laser eyes will keep up with all those strains..:)

PS:

For those who dont't know, here is a brief explanation of how the surgery is done -

In LASIK eye surgery, laser is used to create a thin, circular flap in the cornea. . The surgeon folds the flap back out of the way, then removes some corneal tissue underneath using a laser. The laser uses a cool ultraviolet light beam to precisely remove very tiny bits of tissue from the cornea to reshape it. When the cornea is reshaped in the right way, it works better to focus light into the eye and onto the retina, providing clearer vision than before. The flap is then laid back in place, covering the area where the corneal tissue was removed.

LASIK..!!

LASIK- that's the acronym for laser assisted in-situ keratomileusis. More simply -Its an eye surgery done with Laser rays to correct the refractive error. And guess what...I'm going to do that Lasik thing for my eyes tomorrow evening. My left eye power is -2.5 and my right eye is -0.5. Few months before only I found out that I have this problem in my left eye. Started so suddenly actually. Ever since, I've consulted many eye surgeons and all of them said nothing to worry and to wear glasses. I tried to do so even though I hated wearing glasses. But wearing glasses brought me headaches. So..I sometimes rarely wear glasses during lectures and thats all..It again resulted in recurrent headaches. I also felt as if my vision was getting worse each day. . I've never liked contact lenses as I've always had an idea that it would be painful and time-consuming.

Recently my Dad came to know about this laser treatment which would bring back my normal vision without glasses, and he kept insisting that I should do that..So, finally I agreed to that. Actually I agreed to that rather enthusiastically but now that I'm very close to doing it, I feel a bit scared..

I'll be leaving to colombo tomorrow early morning. My surgery is due at 5pm tomorrow.

I'll catch up with you all after I come back. Hopefully I'll be back here on Monday.. Until then - Bye everyone. See you all with my new LASIK eyes.. :)

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The following are lovely pictures from Hemanth..Thanks a lot buddy :)

Lonely Navaratri..

Today is the last day of Navaratri and tomorrow is vijayathasami. For those who dont know - Saraswati pooja is celebrated on the 9th day of navaratri, for Goddess Saraswati (the presiding deity of the spoken word).

This year I couldnt go home for saraswati pooja due to my heavy schedule. This is the first time I ever missed a saraswati pooja at home. Some of my batchmates cut the lectures and went home of course. But I didnt feel like missing the lectures and so decided to stay despite my mom's persuation to come home. Well it wasnt easy to decide to stay...It took me looongg to decide on this issue and now I regret my decision. Because the lectures were cancelled yesterday and today and I'm stuck here on my own for absolutely nothing. Alone in my room...missing my home, family and pooja..I just wish I had gone home...

A month at hospital..

This post was long overdue. I drafted this post days ago but haven't published it . Just now had the time to read, edit and publish it.

Well..I can hardly believe that a month has already elapsed since I started my basic clinical training at Teaching hospital, Batticaloa. Phew..it had been a really busy month. The best thing about last month is that we didn't have any lectures apart from the hospital appointments. The worst thing is that only our batch had any work to do , while others enjoyed their holidays.

Okay, let me first fill you up with what I had been up to over the last month...

I'm starting my 2nd year MBBS , next week. Before that I had to complete initial clinical training at our teaching hospital. Whole point of the hospital programme was to give us some exposure of the hospital environment, and make us realise the team work involved in managing a patient. We were supposed to learn basic clinical skills and patient -physician communication skills as well.We had to work under 4 consultant physicians in 4 specialities - Medicine, Surgery, Gyn&Obs and Pediatrics.

The teaching hospital I had in my mind and the one I saw were quite different. It doesn't mean that I had never been there before. Of course I had been there. All those times I just kept to the lecture theatre and clinics and all. Never spent much time in the wards. Now that I had spent many weeks throughout the hospital, I realised how much it has changed. Something which caught my attention instantly was the cleanliness and odor-free environment of the hospital.. and trust me, it's something very uncommon for the Srilankan government hospitals to be clean! I soon found out the reason behind this unfamiliar cleanliness. There were numerous sanitary workers with red-black uniform , working all over the hospital. They belonged to some private company called "Will-shine"[ I liked that name ;)]. Thanks to them, my hospital days were odorless and headache free :)

More than anything else, it made me realise the importance of team work in patient management. Even though those 'will shine' people don't have any medical knowledge they are an ineluctable part of the health care system. Every where i went and everything I saw in the hospital emphasized teamwork. Doctors cant work alone. They need nurses, ward attendants, labourers, laboratory technicians and even sanitary workers.

"Less 'me' - More 'We' ; this is what team work is all about" One of the surgeons told me this. Now I know how very true it is.. Now I know what it takes to be a good physician..