Eye surgery

Have had the last couple of days off work on Carer's Leave, cos my sister had an operation on her eyes yesterday and i needed to look after her. It's been nice being able to spend a bit of time with her.

At 8.30am yesterday morning, mum and I took her to the Wembley clinic to see Dr English. Upon arrival, she was given valium and panadeine forte tablets. It's weird watching the effects of the drugs kick in while you're talking to someone. We watched Jules relax as she lost control of her face muscles and gradually sunk into the chair. After about half an hour, they whisked her around the corner, where they dressed her up in a lab coat, plastic hair cap and plastic shoe covers and put betadine drops in her eyes, before sending her out again to sit with us in the waiting room. They offered to take a pre-surgery photo - pretty crazy, seeing she looked her absolute worst! She declined (were they surprised!?!?!).

Then after a few minutes, they took her back around the corner where they clamped her eyes open and proceeded to use a laser to burn her optic nerves. She came out at 10.30am with blood in her eyes and looking even worse. Thank God we have Jesus, that's all i can say.

At our house, we gave her voltaren, ocuflox, mitidex and something else every five hours. They were all eye drops with different purposes. Apparently, one was an antibiotic, one was an anti-inflamatory, one was a steroid and the other was something to take away the stinging effects of the previous three. Each time we went to put the drops in her eyes, we had to take her bandages off, put them in, then tape eye caps back on. Pretty funny stuff.

At home group on Wednesday night, Christie gave us all a copy of a really inspiring and annointed CD by some Canadian guy with a power ministry, so i set it up in the room Jules was in and played it while she slept. There's something very special about it and i prayerfully committed that time to God - so Jules would just soak the wisdom of the Scriptures, praise and worship into her spirit. I really believe that His words never return void but accomplish what He intends them to. Her marinating time was enhanced with lots of prayer in the background - probably all unknown to her.

At lunch time today, we took her back to Dr English, where she got the all clear to return home to Mindarie. So mum and i packed up her stuff and we drove her all the way there. Her house was a complete mess, so we dug out all her cleaning gear and just cleaned and cleaned and cleaned for a few hours straight. I can't wait until the day she gets her life back in order.

I am really grateful we could spend these last couple of days ministering to her. They were two precious days in time.