We were awakened at 2:00 am by a call from Ken's insurance company. Apparently they didn't know India is in a different time zone. We had to recount the whole story of what had happened since we originally called them, which took half an hour. But it was good that they called us because that saved us making an international call, which is often difficult.

In the morning we walked 5 minutes down Lala Lajpat Rai Road from our hotel to the clinic. This area is a much more modern version of Delhi than what we experienced before. Lots of traffic on the road, but no piles of trash and not a cow in sight.
 
At the clinic we had to register at the front desk and then wait for a long time in the crowded waiting room. They had obviously booked a large number of people to see the same doctors at the same time, and were now working their way through all the people that showed up.

After a long wait we saw the doctor and explained what the problem was. He said Ken's eye would need to be dilated and sent us back to the waiting room while that was done. They had a guy's who's only job seemed to be to administer the dilation drops to all the incoming patients. He visited Ken 3 times with 10 minutes between each drop.Then had to wait for drops to take effect.

Then second doctor we saw was a retina specialist. He looked in my eye and and right away called in another doctor to look. The second doctor did a lot of tsk, tsk-ing, which is not what Ken wanted to hear.

They said he had a 'very nasty tear' in his retina and would need immediate treatment. Possibly a laser can be used to tac down the retina and prevent a detachment. If not, a gas bubble surgery like the one he'd had 3 years before would be needed.

We tried to call Dr Varma but just got voice mail. Understandable since it was the middle of the night. 
 
Went downstairs to their fancy imaging machine to get photos done, then came back up, only to be told the photos were not good and taken back down again for another round of photos.

The doctors said they need to anesthetize Ken for this laser treatment, so apparently it's not as simple as the laser work that that Dr Varma had done on Ken as a follow up to his retinal detachment surgery. Because of the need for anesthetic, Ken wasn't allowed any food or water now until the procedure, which is too bad because he was very thirsty.

Then we spent an hour sitting in one of the administrators offices trying to get through to the insurance company to get their approval for us to proceed with treatment. Manulife insists on pre-approving any treatment, so we needed their approval or else risked not being covered for the procedure.

With that done they took us upstairs to a semi-private hospital room to wait. Some nurses came with forms to sign. Heather had to go back downstairs and pay an 80% deposit in the cost of the surgery. Ken had to change into hospital clothes and put all his stuff in a locker. Ken tried to ask questions about the procedure, since very little had been explained about what exactly they were doing and what the risks were. But the nurses and doctors just said to ask those questions of the surgeon before the procedure.

And as part of the preparation, a nurse came with a marker and wrote a big blue 'V' over Ken's left eye. After all the mix-ups about which eye had the problem, Ken was reassured that at least they would be operating on the right one!
 
With all the phoning that Heather had been doing her phone was almost dead. We couldn't be without the phone which was necessary to getting anything done, so we asked if Heather had time before the procedure to run back to the hotel to get her charger. They said yes, so she left.

About 15 minutes later an orderly arrived with a wheelchair and took Ken down to the OT (operating theatre). When Heather got back and Ken was already gone, she had a bit of a breakdown!

Down in the basement Ken was wheeled into one of the several operating rooms and told to climb onto the table. The anesthesiologist arrived and set about putting an IV in his hand. Ken stopped them and said he wanted to talk to the surgeon before the anesthetic.

Talked to a couple surgeons...sort of...but it was difficult to remember all his questions when lying on his back on the operating table. One of the surgeons said he was named Shroff. Ken said THE Dr Shroff? He said yes.

Ken started to shiver from being cold and probably also from adrenaline. Soon he was doing full- body shakes. The nurses brought blankets and piled them on top of him. Then the anesthetist gave him something that left him conscious but which presumably made him care less about the pain and discomfort. The surgeons gathered around and put on lights and head-gear and examined the inside of his eye once again. 

Then the procedure started. The laser was rather painful and went on for a long time. Ken had to look this way and that to give the surgeons better access to different parts of his retina. He saw a lot of flashes and soon his vision was just a kalaidescope of colored lights. The doctors pushed and poked on his eyeball too which also hurt. Throughout the process he could hear the doctors talking back and forth in Hindi but didn't understand anything.

Eventually it was over and they slid him off the table and on to a gurney and took him back up to the room where Heather was waiting. When he got to the room they told him to move over to his bed. The gurney wasn't all the way at the top of the bed so when he moved over he was on the bottom half of the bed with his legs bent. He laughed and said loudly, "What the fuck!" Whatever drugs they'd given him left him very talkative... he was in his 'happy drunk' mode.

The nurse came and gave us a list of eye drops and some pills for Ken to take and Heather went down to the pharmacy to buy what we needed. At this point Ken's vision was completely fogged over in his left eye. He could see areas of colour and light and dark, but no detail. We tried to ask the nurses questions about the surgery but they either didn't understand the questions or were not able to answer. And there didn't seem to be any doctors left to talk to. 

Then Ken was discharged and Heather took him by the hand and led him back to the hotel.