Absolutely the worst experience of my life. I developed a cataract in my right eye at the age of 41. Now having 20/20 eyesight my whole life I was terrified to say the least. We had just moved to Edmonton Alberta, not knowing anything about the area we chose to make the trek to Calgary to visit the Mitchell Eye Center as my husband has had Dr Mitchell perform small eye surgeries on him in the past, we went with what we knew.
However we were scheduled to see a new Doctor. Dr. Ryan Yau. The clinic staff was very nice on the whole, Then I was ushered into Dr Yau office. He was very aloof did not have much to say and when I started asking my question he looked at me and answered my questions with much distaste. I felt very ignorant (in the correct sense) I just felt very stupid like I was asking the worst questions. But I was very scared at the whole aspect of this operation that they perform while you are awake and looking at the whole procedure.
I let that go (which was my first mistake) feeling he could not be a bad surgeon being employed by Dr. Mitchell. Secondly we were not told there was an alternate lens that could be implanted that worked with your eye, instead of the Alberta Health paid lens. Which was a secondary issue that I did not find out until after my operation.
I was scheduled to have my surgery on a cancellation and in Edmonton I was to wait more than four months to even see a surgeon. Which was great. The day of the surgery came, we drove to Calgary the morning of. We arrived and I was shaking in my boots. The anesthesiologist was very calming and I walked into the operating room and saw Dr Ryan Yau who barely said a word. As the operation was going on he was rude. Then it was finally over. In eleven minutes and some odd seconds. They were all so proud of his time. I was as well, since wanting the whole process to be over and done with.
After making it home (a 2 1/2 hour drive each way, my eye remained dilated, which I had been told it would take about four hours to go back to normal. Being elated the procedure was over, 8 hours later my eye still being dilated I finally fell asleep. However when I awoke the next am my eye was still heavily dilated and I had kind of a blackened ridge at the outer eye edge, like I had hair over my eye that I could not see through. By the time we drove back to the Mitchell Eye Center the dilation had hardly gone down, and the dark area was more prevalent. Seeing the technicians faces before I was to see Dr Ryan Yau, made me realize there might be something wrong. Then I was lead into Dr. Yau, who was training a new Eye Surgeon, I started to tell him about the dark spot in the outer corner of my eye, worried oh hell yes. Dr Yau then proceeded to tell me how anxiety ridden I was during the original procedure and that I didn't know what I was talking about. As the conversation went on I was increasingly frustrated and began crying. He wasn't listening to me at all. Telling me it was my anxiety all in my head basically. I left his office and my husband tried talking to him and he would not listen to him either. We tried talking to him by phone, we tried contacting Dr. Mitchell himself (as my husband was still a current patient of his) but to no avail, we had been dismissed. The following 6 weeks were just horrible, my eye finally stopped being dilated, but I could still see the edge of the new lens. When we returned he insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about. After that we asked for a referral for someone in Edmonton.
My new surgeon is amazing, he makes me feel at ease, he is very empathetic at having cataracts at such a young age. I explained what I was seeing to him and right away he told me it was indeed the edge of the lens I was seeing and wanted to know how much I could not see due to that fact. We are working with him now.
I should have gone with my first instinct when I first saw Dr Ryan Yau and ran for the hills, but I didn't unfortunately. But I can share my story with others and hopefully if they walk in and he treats them the way I was treated, more will refuse to have him work on their eyes. Going to the most "respected" clinic in Alberta (a topic I will argue with anyone on) does not mean you receive the best of care unfortunately. Please be aware and comfortable with your doctor, and if he treats you badly on first visit, it will not get any better afterwards. And any doctor who tells you how anxiety ridden you were during a very scary operation that you have to watch, is not the kind of doctor that should be allowed to work on any human. read more