Second op is in a fortnight and I am MORE frightened than I was for the first one. Does that make any sense?

This is going to sound backwards so bear with me.

Right eye done in the spring, went beautifully, I have posted on here about the glasses headache and all of that and it sorted itself out. I have been the calm one telling my sister it is nothing. Left eye is booked for the 11th of August. And for the last week I have been lying awake at night dreading it MORE than I did the first time, which I do not understand at all, because now I actually know what happens.

I think it is that the first time I did not know what was coming so I could pretend it would be nothing. Now I know about the clip on the eyelids and the light and the pressing feeling and I have had two weeks to play it all back in my head. Also, and this is the daft part, I keep thinking the first one went so well that I have used up my luck.

Practical questions underneath the panic, if anyone can help. Is the second one usually any different to the first, quicker or slower? Do they give you the same drops or is it a different anaesthetic the second time? And do they change anything about the lens based on how the first eye turned out, or is it just a copy? Sorry, long post. I am not sleeping.

Makes complete sense and you are in good company. I was a wreck before number two and my wife could not understand it either. First time I was scared of the unknown, second time I was scared of the known, which turned out to be worse for me because I knew exactly which bit I did not like (the drape over my face).

For what it is worth mine felt about half the length the second time. It was not actually half the length, I asked, it was roughly the same. It just felt shorter because I was not braced for every noise.

The "used up my luck" thing is exactly what my sister said and I told her what I will tell you: the first eye going well is not luck, it is a very common operation going the way it very commonly goes. You have not spent anything.

Mine is booked for October and I am doing the same lying awake, so I will be reading whatever Pauline says with interest.

Betty, yes it makes sense, and it is common enough that the nurses at my unit had a name for it: second eye nerves. The direct answer to your worry is that the second operation is the same operation, it is normally no longer than the first (about 15 to 30 minutes, roughly 20 in most hands), and almost everyone on this board who has been through both says it felt easier and shorter, for exactly the reason Harold gives. Your imagination is filling in the gaps the first time round left, and imagination is a worse surgeon than the real one.

On your practical questions, from my own two visits a few weeks apart. Same anaesthetic unless something about the first eye made them want to change it: for me that was numbing drops, no injection, awake, and I did not need the sedative I had planned to ask for either time. If the first eye taught you something, say that the drape made you claustrophobic or that you could not keep still, say so at the pre-op check, because that is exactly what a light sedative or a different block is for. I have just written up the ladder of choices, from drops alone to being put to sleep, and the short version is that you can ask for more than you had last time if you want it.

The lens is not simply a copy. The measurements for the second eye were taken at the same assessment as the first, but the surgeon looks at how close the first eye landed on its target once it has settled and can adjust the plan for the second. That is one of the reasons they space the two eyes out rather than doing them together. Ask at your check whether they are doing that; mine told me without being asked, and it was oddly reassuring to hear the first eye had "landed where it should".

Two things I found different the second time, neither of them frightening. My first eye had finished its drops by the time the second was done (they run about 2 to 4 weeks), so I never had two bottles on the go, but if your gap is shorter you might, and it is worth writing the schedule on a sheet of paper stuck to the fridge. And the moment the second eye clears, a day or two after, is when you finally see with two matched eyes, which is when a lot of us realised how much the first cataract had been stealing for years. There is a longer account of that in having the second eye done.

If the dread is stopping you sleeping for two weeks, tell the unit that too. It is a completely ordinary thing for them to hear and they would rather plan for it than meet it on the day.

Pauline Driscoll said:

imagination is a worse surgeon than the real one

Stealing that line for my brother-in-law who is in exactly your position.

One tip from the second time: I asked the nurse to talk me through each step just before it happened, the way they had the first time without my asking, and I asked for the cold air under the drape the moment it went on rather than waiting to get panicky. Both made a big difference. Nobody minded.

Done on Tuesday. Reporting back as promised.

I told the nurse at the pre-op check about the sleepless fortnight and she wrote it on my sheet and offered a tablet beforehand. I took it. I remember all of it, I just did not care about any of it, which was the whole point. Ken's cold air trick worked too. Whole thing felt like ten minutes though the clock said otherwise.

The surgeon did say the first eye had landed "slightly short" and they had nudged the second lens accordingly, so Pauline was right about that. Two matched eyes this morning for the first time in years and my kitchen is a colour I had genuinely forgotten. June, you will be fine in October. Post when you are through.