Monday, October 31, 2011

Two months of silence – relocation and cataract operation

Well, my keeping quiet on the blogosphere for two months was not because of any mouna vrutha. Such noble undertakings are only for people like our present day ‘Gandhian’ in creaseless clothes.

I was busy with relocating from Chennai to Cochin after seven years, and then a cataract operation. The shifting was really bothersome. The main problem is that one does not know where the things are and that involves quite a bit of searching. Some of my papers are yet to come from Chennai. By the time the computer became operational, it was time for my cataract operation.

The surgery took about fifteen or twenty minutes. One doesn’t even feel it. I was lucky to have Dr. Sandhya Rao doing the procedure. She must be one of the very few FRCS (UK) doctors in the ophthalmic field in India. Very good.

Even though cataract operation is completed a short time, it takes about five weeks for the eyes to become fully operational. I believe that it takes one month for the inserted lens to settle completely. That is a time of regularly using eye drops. Only after that the appropriate spectacles can be prescribed. And getting it made may take two days or so.

But in my case the wait was longer. The operation was done at Vasan Eye Care (they claim to the world’s largest eye care organization) Hospital on the Bypass Road, Cochin. A good place – clean, courteous attention by the staff and you can meet the doctors by appointment

But my problem was with their spectacles section. They made a pair of glasses which didn’t suit me. They were not bothered with my protests. Absolutely discourteous and disinterested people. They didn’t even give me something to read and check my vision. You know, take it or leave it attitude. Of course, I had already paid for it.

To end the cataract story – I went to another optician and got a suitable pair of glasses for half the price. In the process, lost three days. I am keeping the Vasan spectacles as a memento of wasted money.

Anyway, it is nice for me to be back in Cochin – close relatives, old club, good friends, awful roads, impertinent people, mosquitoes and so on.