Since birth, I have had severe strabismus, also called cross-eyes. The gaze of one eye is different from the other eye. It is difficult to see the actual shape of the object. There are esotropia, exotropia, and hypertropia. I have esotropia and exotropia. Both are comitant and incomitant. These diseases rarely happen, so I had a ruthless time.
Esotropia is where the eyes are crossed, and exotropia is where the eyes diverge. Comitant is the problem in all directions a person looks, and incomitant varies by direction. People who have all of these problems are very rare. But I have all these problems, so I must operate the surgery. I had four strabismus surgeries, and I was 4,6,8,10 years old. My first surgery was in a small department of ophthalmology. Reasonably, I was the youngest who was doing surgery. It wasn’t painful, probably because It was my first strabismus surgery. The most painful and impressive surgery was my last one when I was 10. I went to the room in the morning to wait for the operation. It smells the disinfectant. The nurses are talking to each other. When I said my name, they noticed that I had surgery, so they led me to the bed for the patient and explained today’s surgery and precautions. One thing I have to do is before the surgery I have to put the eye drops in every 10 minutes. I was the oldest doing cross-eye surgery, so I had to put on eye drops and wait a lot. My parents and grandparents help me put on the eye drops and wait my turn for surgery. It was my urth fourth surgery, and at the same time, It was my last strabismus surgery. I was more brave than I feared, but my family looked fearful about the possibility of surgery failure. They tried to be serene, but I could figure out they were scared.However, afterward, I lay down on the operating bed. I also got nervous. My body was trembling, and I didn’t notice it. When I arrived in front of the operating room, the male doctor pushed me operating bed and worried me.
“Are you nervous?”
I was very nervous, so I was being honest
“Yes, I’m.”
He holds my hand. His hands were so warm, which made me feel relieved.Doctors and nurses pull my bed to the operating room. At the operating room
“It will finish soon, have some sleep,” he said.
After he said, a transparent mask was placed over my mouth, and the nurse injected an anesthetic; I fell asleep. After waking up from the anesthetic, I was in a recovery room. I was in chaos. I can only notice that now I’m in the recovery room, my mom sits beside my bed, and something on my hands looks like an IV. However, I didn’t know which IV is it. After a few minutes, when i returned to my bed, what I used before the surgery, I had to put the eye drops in my eyes. I was still in chaos. I had the strongest headache and an extreme desire to lie on the bed. But I couldn’t lie down because of the effects of the surgery. I was going crazy. Because of the pain, I cried. I want to break some stuff through it. I hit the dolls a lot. I had to overcome it, but definitely, It wasn’t easy. A few hours later, I got better but had to spread the medicine on the eye patch and use it for three hours daily. The eye I had surgery on got red, like Dracula, and was very itchy. It was the worst surgery and worst period that I had ever experienced in all of my life.
Because I had to stay over 6 hours at the hospital, I tried to read books due to boredom. My dad didn’t give me the phone to play the games. I had to find a method to overcome boredom; I brought books to the hospital during my waiting time. A few months later, I read entire books my mom bought, which made me go to the library to check out the books. Thankfully, I didn’t have a problem reading the books, which made me read many books when I waited to meet the doctors for my strabismus. As a result, It increased my interest and part of the knowledge. Since I don’t have any repulsion from reading books, it helps me to get prizes in writing competitions. Likewise, It causes my grades in the Korean language. When my friends spent a lot of time studying mid-term for the Korean language, I could easily get a high grades because of the books I read.Moreover, the surgery developed patience. The waiting time to see a doctor was very long. If I wanted to get treatments, I had to wait patiently, even if I didn’t like it, and I did it subsequently. Thus, I had the patience.
After I grew up, I appreciated my parents for operating my surgery, and It wasn’t cheap. However, my parent’s support makes me live daily life without any difficulties with my eyes, so I’ve always been thankful to my parents. Later, I start to appreciate even small things due to surgery. Even my eyesight is affected by the strabismus surgery as a side effect, and I have strong astigmatism: a disease in which the light entering the eye is not focused at a single point due to the uneven surface of the eyeball. After that, I am grateful for everything I took for granted. I’m sure some people can not have surgery through their poverty. Due to this, I have realized since I had eye surgery. It is no exaggeration to say that the eyes are indispensable and our most precious body parts. It was an unforgettable experience to undergo surgery for a problem with an essential part of the body, the eye. It was harrowing, but on the other hand, the eye surgery that made me realize a lot was an indispensable experience in my life.