John Radcliffe Hospital

Friday 10th April 2009

Up early, breakfasted, then we started walking down the towpath at about 8 am in the drizzle. One of our problems was that the bus timetables are all different today, as it is Good Friday, and I had an appointment at 10:15. We walked into Kidlington, where we were lucky enough to come across a bus about to leave for the centre of Oxford, then we also had the good fortune to get another connection towards the hospital very soon after we arrived at the bus stop in St Aldgate.

We got to the hospital almost an hour in advance of my appointment, however, the new West Wing includes a large atrium café serving good cappuccino.

At the eye hospital they couldn’t find my notes at first, although details had been faxed through by the optician yesterday. I had an anaesthetic put into my eyes, then two different pupil dilators, then they tested pressures again with ‘a more modern machine than the optician’. Then the ophthalmologist spent ages looking at my eyes from every angle while shining extremely bright lights into my eyes. When she wanted me to look left I found that my right eye tended to close, which meant that I couldn’t then tell where I was looking since all I could see in my left eye was the light, and it would wander slightly. So I was given more anaesthetic to try and counter this. I struggled all the time to keep both eyes fully open, and my eyes felt dry, while watering constantly. Eventually she finished with one machine and asked me to lie back in a reclining chair – at which point I discovered that I could see nothing with my left eye. I had one awful moment of panic – “I can’t see anything at all in my left eye!” “No, you won’t be able to, I’ve been shining very bright lights into it, you've been dazzled - it will take about 10 minutes to recover”. Whew!

So, she then did various other tests and announced that I had a couple of relatively minor problems that are common in middle age, and are largely asymptomatic, and that – the most important thing – there was no sign of a detached retina.

She gave me advice about what I could expect to happen over the next few weeks, and what would be abnormal and would need further attention. I can only say how lucky I was that this problem showed when I was near to one of the best hospitals in the country. I know that I can’t say that I won’t get major visual problems in the future, but I do feel that I have had the best possible check that I could have had.

We had the same good fortune with buses as earlier, and got back to the boat by about 1 pm, then a quick lunch and we set off. I have had to be careful for a large part of the day, as the medications in my eye took a long time to wear off – my pupils were dilated for hours afterwards, and consequently my vision was a bit fuzzy, and outside the boat it seemed extremely bright, although it was drizzling.
Interesting mechanism for holding the lock paddle open at Duke's cut

So, then down Duke's Cut and on to the Thames at Kings Lock. We are currently moored just above Osney Lock.

The factory opposite has a beautiful brick facade, which has been hacked about and ruined by brick structures inside the windows, a pity.

Distance: 8.3 miles Locks: 6
Total Distance: 115.2 , Total Locks: 85