Here’s looking at you, Fredric.
The details are a bit icky, but retinal reattachment surgery turns out to be surprisingly un-harrowing, at least in the moment. And the Moorfields experience was pretty much exemplary of the NHS at its best. The recovery process is very tiresome though. I am currently half-blind and will remain so for weeks. Left eye is not entirely sightless, but what it sees is a blurry, wavering, sloshy mess that actively detracts from the vision on the right. And I have to maintain head posture reasonably carefully for awhile, which is especially annoying at night.
Still, it certainly beats the alternative.