Struggling on.

[piper]

GarethB.....here are a couple of links:

first, the Primary surgeon was Herbert E. KAUFMAN, M.D. if you google that name/title you will get pages of the books he has written and awards, etc.

Then, visit http://www.lsu-eye.lsuhsc.edu/ That is the Louisiana State University eye clinic I have been going to. Since the storm they have been meeting in alternate buildings up to 85-miles apart.....but such is life after a hurricane.

Here is Dr. Kaufman's page at the LSU site http://www.lsu-eye.lsuhsc.edu/AboutUs/f ... 5kZXguaHRt

Around the clinic the other doctors and staff treat him as though he walks on water......perhaps he does. Whenever he sees me, he has in tow 3-4 young MDs working to become optham's who see what he sees, do what he does, etc so a check up takes a bit longer, but in the interests of creating other opthams to help people like us I am happy to go along with it. Dr. Kaufman has trained SEVERAL HUNDRED other opthams to do corneal transplants, etc......

I hope that in a year or so I am still happy with the work he did for me...... Things are getting better with the vision in my graft eye but I am just so D****D impatient.....I have waited many years to SEE and want to see NOW!........OK, I'll sit down and behave......

thanks for your interest Gareth. I'm getting together with the Ford owner we discussed and will get some further info soon. KC is inconvenient.....a loose wheel-assembly is downright dangerous.

cheers, Piper

[Andrew MacLean]

I just want to jump back to Piper's observation that his brain seems to be "averaging" the vision in his two eyes.

Mine too!

With my left eye (most recent graft) closed I can see clearly through my right (grafted 2003).

With both eyes open I see a kind of blur.

But, here's the good news! I can now see well enough to read text down to 10 pt through my recently grafted eye! It took over 18 months to get to this point with my first graft and even then I could only rread with specs on. I really do mean that I can read unaided with my left eye. Let me put that another way I CAN SEE through my left eye well enough to read. All I need now is to make progress on the distance thing and I'll be like a pig in mud.

I go to Gartnavel tomorrow for a routine appointment. they will check my pinhole vision to see what the current potential is for sight in the new eye.

Am I happy? YES!

Andrew

[piper]

Andrew, you give me hope, but 18-months seems like forever. I have found myself simply closing my right, grafted, eye. But I don't want to get too good at that and be unable to really open it later. My wife tells me that it doesn't "look " right now. I had a nice pirate's patch which I could wear and leave my right eye open and out of the wind, etc.....but set it down and now I can't see it. You know the drill.....how often have you looked for something in a cluttered drawer or delktop and JUST CAN'T SEE IT??

Seems like simple views with fewer details are easy, cluttered views with too much diverse detail are pretty tough.

To another poster who wished for some KC glasses to share with her family.......try a clear glass beer bottle. Let them look through it like a spyglass and view the world through the bottom......it's not perfect but adequately confusing that they will get the picture. Then tell them that every day it changes so you can never really get used to it.

Cheers, Piper

[Andrew MacLean]

Piper

You could have a pair of glasses made up with the right lens blanked out. A friendf uses a pair like this to drive.

Andrew