Eye Surgery Means Six Weeks Out of Water

I just finished two days (and nights) in the face down position required after the surgery on my right eye. At least six weeks of no flying / no diving will follow. No diving means no new underwater pictures on this site (and anywhere else). However, I’ll be processing / publishing / commenting my older images that wait stored on my drives.

Let me give you a brief information on what happened to my eye. A thin film-like layer called epiretinal membrane has developed on my right eye’s macula which caused slightly blurry vision and some vision distortion too. The development of the membrane has been watched for about a half a year and a surgery was recommended to me in December 2013.

I undergo the surgery two days ago (last Tuesday). It had two steps. The first one called vitrectomy was to remove vitreous humor from the eye. That enabled the second step, the removal of the epiretinal membrane. After the surgery a gas bubble has been put into my eye. When I am in the face down position the bubble creates pressure on my retina which helps to keep it in place during the healing process. That gas in the eye means any pressure changes are prohibited as they would change the intraocular pressure rapidly with blindness as a result.

The technology used for the surgery was amazing, only local anaesthesia was used (don’t want to hear how they got the anaesthetic behind(!) my eye), the holes to get the tools into my eye were less than 1mm in diameter. The eye is swollen and sore, but the pain is bearable. If everything goes well I’ll be able to do what you can see on the picture above in a short while (thanks to Peter Kailing for the picture of me examining rock pools).

My thanks to Dr Peter Hadden (the surgeon) and to all the staff from Eye Institute, to my lovely wife Ivana for her care, to our kids and all the friends and customers who bear with me, to our Christian friends for their prayers and support, and most of all to our God who is my origin and my end.