Brent Stone's Corneal Transplant Blog: 1/31/09 - 3:20 PM

Today was a bit of a rougher day than yesterday. My only explanation is that the adrenaline from the day before wore off a bit. When I woke up, I felt quite weak and my eye ached. In addition, when I put drops in my eye, my eye stung from the drops and there has basically been a scratchy feeling in my eye all day.

I actually felt a headache and nausea this morning and got a little worried about rejection, but Caroline looked at my eye and it looked quite clear. I have been continuing to put the drops in regularly and am monitoring the look and feel of my eye closely.

I took a nap from about noon to 2:30 PM and afterwards I felt quite a bit better. My eye still hurts, but I felt less weak. I have to remember that I am still recovering from surgery and need to take it easy.

The other interesting thing is that although my eye looks more bloodshot than the day before, it actually looks a little more normal. Yesterday, the pupil in my operated eye was much smaller than my other pupil (I had postulated that this was because I was not using the eye for much vision, but could have been a result of something during the surgery). Today my pupils look about the same size, which I am hoping is a good thing.

I also want to ask the Dr. about putting regular rewetting drops in my eyes, as the operated eye feels dry and it may be from the bandage contact lens that is covering the transplanted eye (I don't think that I mentioned that Dr. Rapoza places a no power contact over the operated eye to help with the healing).

I also took a shower this morning for the first time since surgery. It felt good to clean up and to shave. I faced away from the water most of the time and closed my eyes when I faced the water and it was not a big deal at all. Speaking of cleaning up, I have been washing my hands relentlessly to keep them clean when dealing with my eye and also using the same Purell that I use when changing my son Bradley.

All in all, today was a bit of a bring me back down to earth day as it kind of hit me today that I had transplant surgery (I am still ecstatic with the results and how I feel, but again, I think the adrenaline has just worn off).

Also, I thought it would be fun to post some pictures...

Eyes Pre-Surgery...