Mrs. Maxcy Castellino
I thank God and you Dr. Irfan for my successful cataract operation done so skillfully. You are very gentle and soft spoken person and this speaks volumes about you.
Your staff members are very courteous and this surely makes one’s visit to the clinic good.
God bless your hand at work always.
My Experience of LASIK By Mrs. Nafees Ashraf
For twenty five years, I have clutched on to my spectacles and lenses as one of the necessities of life. Many a times have I spent hours on my knees hunting for lost lenses (being super soft they quietly slip out of grasp and cling to any surface). Spectacles had this amazing habit of disappearing into thin air. Life was unimaginable without these vital tools.
Then came the awareness of LASIK - Laser Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis. This was considered a major breakthrough in the field of Refractive Surgery. In layman’s terms this means the reshaping of the cornea in such a way as to eliminate completely the patient’s refractive error.
But LASIK remained a distant dream - meant only for the whiz kids of glitz city. Imagine my delighted surprise when my eye doctor, Dr Irfan Khatib suggested that it could be performed on me! A thousand doubts assailed me......... being an ordinary “school marm” I couldn’t believe that exciting things were about to happen in my life! Dr. Khatib addressed all of my doubts and painstakingly explained the entire procedure. My unscientific mind finally grasped the facts and I decided to go in for the surgery.
Two days before the surgery, I go for a topography wherein the dimensions of my cornea are plotted on a graph and an “eye-map” is prepared. This data will be fed into the computer attached to the LASIK machine. The day of the surgery finally dawns! At the appointed hour, I sit all scrubbed up in a sterilized gown and headgear in the pre-operation room. The operation theatre is a bee-hive of activity as Dr. Khatib and his able team prepare the machine and autoclave the instruments.
Their precision, efficiency and hard work make me realise how each surgery is an ‘event’ in itself, neatly programmed and orchestrated. It brings home to me the fact that medicine is truly a noble field whose practioners make a fine art of their duty of preserving life and making it rich and meaningful. These ‘specialists’ blend night into day, working unremittingly in their respective spheres...... wiping tears and bringing comfort to our lives. Stressed out and overworked as they are, they still address each patient as a distinct human with his hopes and fears, trifle emotions and insecurities. As we watch awestruck the miracles of science unfurling before our dazed eyes, we salute these dream merchants who bring them within our reach.
I am finally called into the operation theatre and I quietly pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. I lie down on the operation table and put my head on the head rest. My right eye is completely numbed using eye-drop anesthesia. Just above my face is a binocular microscope. The doctor peers down to get a magnified view of my eye. An eyelid holder holds the lid back. As I look up at the elaborate machine I ask myself if I am nervous? No... all I feel is a pleasant sense of anticipation. Dr. Khatib then turns to the computer where the details of my eye-map have been fed in. The screen flashes the laser’s plan of action. Directly above my eye I see a green light surrounded by a sky of pink and yellow lights. That is all I see during the operation, but the doctor explains what I have to do. ‘Keep your eye on the green light; I’m using it to lock the laser onto your pupil.” Then using a small cutter called the microkeratome, he makes a small flap on the corneal tissue. The remarkable thing is that I feel a slight pressure on my eye but no pain! The doctor’s next “You will hear a sound, but don’t worry and lie still” makes me smile! The sound is like the buzz of an electric razor.
Next I feel a cool beam of light working on my eyeball. I am told that each pulse of the laser beam will vaporize and reshape the cornea, so making it with the dimensions of a person with normal vision. I continue to stare at the green light, surrounded by flashing pink and yellow lights. I imagine myself in a discotheque...... Where’s the party tonight?? Unbidden the song pops into my mind. I drag my wavering thoughts back to the scene. The surgeon places the flap back over the cornea. The right eye is done! The same procedure is repeated on the left. Dr. Irfan Khatib then informs me that the surgery is done. Just fifteen minutes have passed since I entered the operation theatre and I felt no discomfort!!
Dazed, I get up and what strikes me is the clarity of the images in the room. Again that quiet pinch assures me that I am not dreaming. I walk out slowly into the recovery room. Dr. Khatib tells me “I’ve deliberately under corrected your vision because there’s a slight drift after the operation. By tomorrow morning, you’ll have excellent vision that will continue to improve over the next month.” I am overwhelmed by a sense of euphoria....... a mundane “thank you” to the doctor cannot sum up my feelings. How do you acknowledge a new lease of life?!
I step out of the clinic into a world that is almost blinding in its clarity. The sky is a vivid blue, red is bright red and green is a vibrant shade! I notice all the things that I hadn’t earlier..... a tiny bird flying in the sky, the hoarding on the flyover that is thirty paces away. The entire world is in sharp focus. Surely this has to be a dream???
The next morning I rush to the window. It’s a brand new day outside and I am overwhelmed by this new vision: has the horizon come closer? Or have I taken giant leaps forward? One moment I am soaring high in the skies the next instant I’m admiring the tiny grains in the mud. Over the next few days my vision improves and the slight initial discomfort ceases. I go for regular follow-ups and the doctor assures me that all is well. Along with my vision something else has changed. I am looking at life with a whole new perspective. I’ve broken free of my shackles and am reaching out for new avenues of self-expression. At the ripe age of forty, thoughts, plans, career switches crowd my mind........... the world is my oyster! This new acquaintance with the world, this renewal of happiness and childlike wonder have been the consequences of LASIK.
To all those who have decided to go in for LASIK I have this to say: “Go armed with a complete understanding of the procedure, total trust in the doctor and full FAITH in the miracles of the one we believe in and so reverently call GOD.
Mary Silveria
Successful Operations of CATARACT
One of the greatest gifts God has bestowed on mankind is our eyesight through which we can see the marvels of God’s creations. When this gift is impaired due to cataract/eye injury/diabetes, etc. the ophthalmologist play a very important role in restoring normal vision.
I was always afraid and apprehensive of an eye operation. But when I visited Dr. Irfan Khatib for an eye check-up, his gentle and friendly disposition made me feel comfortable and that put me at ease. I cleared all my doubts and fears as he answered all my queries much to my satisfaction. I took an appointment for an operation for my left eye that very week and for the right eye three months later. The operations were a success. I can see clearly, even read and write without glasses. I am very thankful to Dr. Irfan Khatib. May God bless him.
