We went to the hospital yesterday to meet my mom’s ophthalmologist. That was part of her monthly routine check-up after having Lucentis injection for her AMD treatment on August. The initial schedule was supposed to be on the 10th of November, but since it had been raining hard lately we had to reschedule the appointment until yesterday.

The hospital, Jakarta Eye Center, is about 30 km away from our house and easy to be reached by train since both our house and the hospital are located near the train station. However, during bad weather like this, traveling by train is not a good option. There will be many delays or even cancellations. We tried to wait until the weather was good, but it never happened, it got worse instead.

So yesterday I forced myself to drive her to the hospital under heavy rain. My mom actually didn’t like the idea of me driving in rain, and to tell you the truth I didn’t like it either, but we couldn’t delay it any longer since she ran out of her artificial tear (Hialid 0.1) and started to feel burning sensation in her eye so she needed to get a new prescription.

Anyway, despite all the troubles we went through during our drive to the hospital, we heard good news from her ophthalmologist yesterday. He said my mom’s AMD treatment was showing a great result and her eye was already back and stable to its initial condition (which was after the glaucoma and cataract surgery), praise God. So the doctor changed her monthly check-up into every three month. Her next appointment was set on the first week of February next year, unless she felt something uncommon in her vision or her eye then she needed to see him immediately.

She also got a new prescription for her artificial tear and it’s copy until the next three months. Her ophthalmologist advised her to slowly reduce her Hialid 0.1 dosage from 6 times a day (current dosage) to whatever level she feels comfortable. His recommendation was to reduce it gradually until only three times a day but it depends on my mom’s eye reaction. That’s a really good news for us and we’re so happy to hear them!

I went to Jakarta Eye Center with my mom yesterday, she had a morning appointment with her ophthalmologist. It was supposed to be a routine 6 month post glaucoma and cataract surgery check up. However, during the check up my mom complained that she thought her cataract had come back again because her vision became blurry lately, but the doctor said cataract would never return after surgery. He said sometimes hazy vision happened to some patients after cataract surgery and he recommended a posterior capsulotomy procedure in order to make her vision clear again. He convinced us that it was a very simple procedure that could be done right that minute.

We didn’t have to think twice to agree with the doctor’s advise. Learning from our experience we surely didn’t want to repeat the mistakes we had done in the past. My mom’s right eye is now permanently damage due to glaucoma, her previous doctor at different hospital failed to diagnose it until it was too late. Thank God we still could save her left eye after we changed to another ophthalmologist. She had a glaucoma and cataract surgery all at once last year. Maybe later I will make a post about this.

So my mom took the YAG laser capsulotomy procedure yesterday. The entire procedure only took less than ten minutes. First the ophthalmologist gave dilating eye drops on the eye then told my mom to wait outside. About five minutes later he called her back in and asked her to sit still in front of the laser equipment (I don’t know how to call it and I wish I had my camera with me yesterday). One minute later he said it was done, so fast. It’s not expensive either, it costs her only about US$ 100.

The ophthalmologist said my mom’s vision should improve few hours after the procedure. He also gave prescription for the next five days. Let’s hope everything will be fine.