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Within a few minutes, call came to my roommate, the mature lady, and she went in.
I guess her talkative hubby, expounding his autobiography to my son, didn't notice her departure from our waiting lounge. He was holding us spellbound how he had visited 33 countries, all without a visa. And we were duly astonished wondering if he spent his whole life as an expert stow away...till he dispelled our notions stating that he was in the Navy.
And that his son is an airlines pilot. Later we happened to meet this chap...he didn't look like a pilot to me. My idea of a pilot was that he would be pompous and cockpitty...but he turned out to be like any of our 4th year MSc kids...like say Saswat without specs.
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Within a few minutes, call came to my roommate, the mature lady, and she went in.
I guess her talkative hubby, expounding his autobiography to my son, didn't notice her departure from our waiting lounge. He was holding us spellbound how he had visited 33 countries, all without a visa. And we were duly astonished wondering if he spent his whole life as an expert stow away...till he dispelled our notions stating that he was in the Navy.
And that his son is an airlines pilot. Later we happened to meet this chap...he didn't look like a pilot to me. My idea of a pilot was that he would be pompous and cockpitty...but he turned out to be like any of our 4th year MSc kids...like say Saswat without specs.
Among retirees I guess I am in the tiny set who feel shy to talk about their good old 'service' days...blogging instead of bragging.
Meanwhile another dame entered and slipped the default striped gown on me. For once I felt like Khaidi # 246 or whatever.
And my number came up duly and I was called to the inner sanctum. My son wished me a wordless Happy Cataract while the hubby kept up his monologue and reached the climax where he was fighting with his in-laws on an inheritance suit worth 4 crores in Delhi...failing which he was preparing for strong arm tactics.
Some hubby that!
And as I entered my semifinals, the youthful Assistant Surgeon asked me to get up and lie down on the bed and asked me 'Which eye?'
That was rather scary...the chap had in his hands my whole bulky file and he ought to have known which eye...dammit!
But I now see he was testing my psyche. And I answered rightly, 'right eye'.
He smiled and after going through my file he pushed an injection into my lower eye lid and I knew it was my local anesthesia.
Apparently those whose cataract is just mature are given a couple of drops of anesthetic to see them through the 8 minutes of phaco-surgery...like my roommate.
But those whose cataract is overripe are given a shot of longer-lasting drug in case the surgeon needs more time to tease out the solidified lens or goofs up doing it.
And for those who have a heart condition or head condition or are prone to turn violent or start crying or getting fidgety, general anesthesia is advised to keep them sullenly quiet for an hour or so.
The only other time I had a shot of local anesthesia was during my visits to my dentist at KGP. He was a jolly good fellow and answered all my queries without asking me to shut up.
My first tooth that was pulled out was the lower left wisdom one. And within minutes of his shot the entire lower left half of my jaw started tingling and became numb...a very pleasant sensation.
But my next extraction was the upper left wisdom thing. This time no tingling was there...not at all...it was just a dud.
And I asked my dentist why so.
And he said that the upper and lower jaws are different kettles of fish. The nerve supply systems are totally different and more care is required of the upper jaw since it is directly connected to my brain...such as it is.
I then recalled my sister telling me in her anatomy days half a century ago that my upper jaw doesn't wag like my lower one. I didn't believe her till I tested it when I next started chewing my cud. And she was right. We only move our lower jaws when we speak or eat...unlike our KGP snakes.
How little we know of ourselves!
I never had the thrill of going under general anesthesia... so far. My elder cousin, the renowned Telugu poet writing under the pseudonym Rasik, narrated to me when we were boys of 11 and 10 what happened during his tonsils operation in Madras. By then the days of laughing gas as an anesthetic were over and the days of ether and chloroform were in.
He told me that he was laid up on the table with his hands and feet clamped. Then they covered his face with a mask into which chloroform vapors were let in. And he was asked to count up to ten...aloud.
His initial reaction to the damn thing was to fight it out with them, break up his clamps, jump down the table, and run away.
Failing which he obeyed their command and started counting and all he recalled was that his count went up to 6...and then it was a total blank.
Some counting that!
My wife narrated to me her experience with spinal anesthesia during her Caesarean operation in 1981. Her surgeon pushed the shot and kept chatting her up, knowing that she was a medico. And she was aware of all the drill till he announced:
"It is a son!"
After which she slept off soundly...
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