Hello my dear friends, I hope you are enjoying these well deserved vacation days 🌞. This 2025 I had planned it with the word Healing, since the previous year, I did not have a good time at all. In this healing, I included the physical and spiritual; in addition, myself and my environment. Unfortunately, the plans have been different. What should have been a routine and popular healing procedure among ophthalmologists, has brought us to the bitter end.

It all started at the beginning of the year with the idea and goal of operating on my mother's cataracts. This is the major eye condition, which affects or will affect all people in old age, where the only salvation is surgery. It is a treatment that has been accessible in my country, because it is being performed in public entities and that is why I agreed to perform it because in a private instance, its cost is around $2000. It is supposed to be a simple procedure, which lasts approximately 20 minutes and the next day the vision improves 100%, giving back to the person the possibility of seeing and being more independent or as independent as when he had his eye in normal condition.

Not being operated, implies that the person progressively loses vision, to the point of being blind, preventing them from performing their routine activities; in other words, either you have surgery or you go blind, it is your choice. It is no secret that in our hospitals the supplies are scarce, therefore they send us a list of supplies that I had to buy in order to have access to the operation. In addition to this, I also had the exams done in private places, so I had to pay for them, because even the copies of the history had to be paid for. We are talking about $500 that we had destined for other projects in my home, but everything is for my mother's health; for her, EVERYTHING!

Well, with everything ready, we only had to wait for the date of the intervention and this is where everything gets complicated.

_En la puerta del quirófano, estaban citados 4 pacientes, 3 señores y mi madre; además, hubo una señora que quedó del turno de la mañana porque su pupila no dilataba. Llegado el momento del turno quirúrgico de la doctora, esto fue lo que pasó:_ _El paciente #1, lo operaron, pero salió con mucho dolor porque la anestesia no fue suficiente, razón por la que le dieron un calmante y salió a su casa; la señora que estaba desde la mañana fue la #2, con ella la operación duró 2 horas y no pudieron colocar su lente así que debe ser operada nuevamente. Al paciente #3, no le pudieron operar porque su presión superaba los 220, por lo que el señor admitió que era paciente cardiológico y no se tomaba el medicamento; en su caso, le suspendieron la operación y lo mandaron a revisión hasta controlar su presión arterial. Un paciente #4, al entrar al quirófano, la anestesia le hizo reacción, se brotó su ojo, impidiendo seguir su cirugía. Con este panorama, venía mi madre._ _Al entrar a quirófano, tenía "tensión arterial"; la sacaron, le aplicaron un medicamento y estuvo dos horas esperando entrar nuevamente a operación. Lo que debió ser un procedimiento de 20 minutos, se convirtió en una hora. En ese tiempo, se complicó la cirugía (en sus términos médicos incomprensibles) pero se realizó y la llevé a casa. Tenía mucho dolor, delirio y vómito producto de la misma anestesia. Así pasamos esa primera noche con todos los cuidados de que no se moviera o hiciera algo indebido. Al otro día, retiraron su parche para hacer las evaluaciones de cómo había salido la operación._

At the operating room appointment, 4 patients were scheduled, 3 men and my mother; in addition, there was a lady who was left over from the morning shift because her pupil did not dilate. When it was time for the doctor's surgical shift, this is what happened: Patient #1 was operated on, but he came out in a lot of pain because the anesthesia was not enough, so he was given a painkiller and went home; the lady who had been there since the morning was #2, with her the operation lasted 2 hours and they could not place her lens so she had to be operated on again. To patient #3, they could not operate because his blood pressure was over 220, so the gentleman admitted that he was a cardiac patient and did not take his medication; in his case, they suspended the operation and sent him for revision until his blood pressure was under control. One patient #4, upon entering the operating room, the anesthesia caused him to react, his eye popped out, preventing him from continuing his surgery. With this scenario, my mother came.

When she entered the operating room, she had “blood pressure”; they took her out, gave her some medication and she spent two hours waiting to go back into surgery. What should have been a 20-minute procedure, turned into an hour. In that time, the surgery was complicated (in her incomprehensible medical terms) but it was performed and I took her home. She was in a lot of pain, delirium and vomiting from the anesthesia itself. So we spent that first night with all the care that she did not move or do anything improper. The next day, they removed her patch to evaluate how the operation had gone.

¿Resultados?

Nada buenos. Mi madre salió sin ver muy bien; desde el 18 de marzo hemos visitado al médico en unas 7 ocasiones, sin ningún tipo de mejoría. En 4 ocasiones le han cambiado el tratamiento, producto de las alergias que provocan en su ojo y la "intoxicación por colocarlo durante mucho tiempo", siguiendo de la misma forma.

En la entrevista con la doctora, siempre dice que "va bien", pero le falta desinflamar. No mentiré, a veces tenemos días buenos y días no tan buenos. Mi madre se deprime, se desespera, llora, piensa que todo salió mal, ya que, por un lado, escucha de historias desgarradoras de operaciones que salen muy mal y la persona pierde el ojo, donde ella piensa que eso fue lo que le pasó; por otro lado, escucha las historias de éxito total en las operaciones, sintiéndose triste en muchas ocasiones, preguntándose "¿Qué pasó con mi ojo?". Al yo no tener respuesta, obviamente me siento frustrada e impotente por no saber a ciencia cierta que es lo que pasó y nadie decirme nada concreto.

Por ser un hospital, nadie da informes, respuestas y pareciera que todos se cubren las espaldas al no dar la verdadera razón de lo que está pasando. Diríamos que vamos a denunciar, abrir una investigación, buscar respuestas, pero mejor nos enfocamos en la recuperación y sanación completa de nuestra madre, lo demás, es secundario.

Results? Not good. My mother went out without seeing very well; since March 18 we have visited the doctor 7 times, without any improvement. On 4 occasions they have changed the treatment, due to the allergies they cause in her eye and the “intoxication from putting them in for a long time”, continuing in the same way. In the interview with the doctor, she always says that “it is going well”, but she still needs to reduce the inflammation. I won't lie, sometimes we have good days and not so good days. My mother gets depressed, despairs, cries, thinks it all went wrong, since, on the one hand, she hears of heartbreaking stories of operations that go very wrong and the person loses the eye, where she thinks that is what happened to her; on the other hand, she hears the stories of total success in the operations, feeling sad on many occasions, wondering “What happened to my eye?”. Since I have no answer, I obviously feel frustrated and helpless for not knowing for sure what happened and no one telling me anything concrete. Since it is a hospital, no one gives reports, answers and it seems that everyone is covering their backs by not giving the real reason for what is happening. We would say that we are going to denounce, open an investigation, look for answers, but we better focus on the recovery and complete healing of our mother, the rest is secondary.

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Confiando siempre en Dios, me despido y pronto espero traer una publicación más esperanzadora y que todo esto solo quede como una anécdota para que las personas tengan una referencia de esta operación.

_Las fotografías son de mi propiedad. La portada, al igual que el separador y banner, los hice en Canvas. El traductor que usé fue DeepL._

Hasta un próximo encuentro.

Trusting always in God, I say goodbye and soon I hope to bring a more hopeful publication and that all this only remains as an anecdote for people to have a reference of this operation. The photographs are my property. The cover, as well as the separator and banner, were made in Canvas. The translator I used was DeepL. See you next time.