27 years ago, so that would be 1995. I am 46 years old now.
I had an orbital fracture after hitting the right side of my face against a tree in a motorcycle accident. I had the first and second surgeries at Dong-A University Hospital in Busan, and my face was completely ruined. Of course, medical technology was far behind what it is now, but the professor who performed my third surgery at Pusan National University Hospital also said that if someone like me had gone straight to the oral and maxillofacial surgery department at Pusan National University Hospital back then, the result would have been very different...ㅠㅠ
The first surgery was completely botched, and it ruined the balance of my entire normally functioning right side of the face. At that time there were no artificial bone materials, so they shaved my head completely and took bone from the top of my skull to graft under the orbit.
Because it was surgery that involved making an incision in the head, there is a severe scar left on my scalp. After the graft, as the bone fused, the upper part of the right cheekbone was pushed outward to the right, and my face was a mess.
The eye socket had also sunk in very severely. They said the second surgery would straighten it out too, but the result was not satisfying at all. The professor who led the first and second surgeries said the operation was 99 percent successful...ㅠㅠ A 21-year-old like me, and parents who were ordinary people with no power, could do nothing. We were not from a wealthy family either (I am truly sorry to my parents ㅠㅠ), and hiring a lawyer to argue the case would not have solved anything back then.
In 1995, most ordinary households did not really have computers. Even if they did, the internet was still first-generation, so it cannot be compared with the internet of today. I am saying this because there will probably be many community members with a big age gap, and I wondered whether someone might think, "Why didn't you use internet information?"
I received my third surgery in the oral and maxillofacial surgery department at Pusan National University Hospital in 1996, and I have been living like this ever since. Thanks to the third surgery, the shape of the right side of my face was restored to some extent, and the sunken eye improved a little too, but it still did not come back enough. The professor said, "I should have added one more plate," with regret, I heard. After the surgery, when the anesthesia wore off, I lifted the eye patch to check my eyeball and immediately knew it: the eye position was not right, I thought, ;;
Even though it improved somewhat, there is still a big difference from my original appearance. I also have some diplopia, so I live with a bit of discomfort. And I still hate taking photos and am afraid of them. The way I look in photos is even worse. My social life also shrank, and my life changed. Before the accident, I was someone who smiled a lot and liked hanging out and going out with friends. Looks are not everything in life, but I think everyone here will especially understand that they still take up a very important part of life.
Recently, after seeing on TV and elsewhere that celebrities and athletes like Choo Sung-hoon, Son Heung-min, Choi Hon-chul, and Kim Bo-sung had orbital fracture accidents, I started searching to see how the technology for treating sunken eyes had changed, and I ended up here. It seems the technology has improved a lot. If I remember correctly, when I was in my early 30s, about 12 years after the accident, I went to a local eye clinic for something and asked the doctor about reoperation for the sunken eye. That old doctor basically told me not even to dream about it. I do not know whether it was because local doctors were slow to get information or whether the technology around 2008 was still not good enough. Anyway, I just gave up and lived thinking, "Ah, so reconstruction for a sunken eye must be difficult no matter how much time passes."
I am from a generation that is not a computer generation, so there are many people who never even learned keyboard typing. I, too, practiced Korean input really hard just to learn the keyboard after being stimulated by elementary school kids at a PC room who could type without ever looking at the keys while reading a book in front of them. Of course, I also did it so I could search the internet more comfortably. You computer-generation people may not really understand this, haha. If you cannot type without looking at the keyboard, searching the internet with the hunt-and-peck method is extremely slow and inconvenient. Even typing one sentence takes a long time and is irritating, so you end up not searching much at all. After smartphones came out, even people who never learned typing could at least search more easily, so that changed things a bit...
Around last December, while I was seriously searching about reoperation for sunken eyes caused by orbital fracture, I came to know of this community too. At first I just skimmed it and moved on, but as I read various posts, I felt it was a very useful community. I do not know whether there are just not many cases like mine or whether I have simply not seen them yet, but I do not see anything about sunken-eye surgery in the community search function. That is a bit disappointing, but I do think useful information will come up.
Two days ago, I made a wasted trip to Daegu after watching a YouTube broadcast in a hurry. I have decided to let go of my impatience. I have lived like this for more than 25 years after the accident, so why can I not wait a few more years... I should just approach it with the mindset of calmly looking into it for one or two years. There is no need to rush.
I think I am getting too excited and rushing too impatiently because the technology has developed. The surgery I want may not be 100 percent possible, but I want the eye position corrected as much as possible. I am not young, but I still have quite a few years left to live. I want to improve the eye position and the diplopia as well, and live while confidently looking into the eyes of the people I talk to. I can feel quite a few people thinking my right eye is strange....ㅡㅡ;
From experience, if anyone suffers an orbital fracture, I strongly recommend that for the first surgery, you do not just go to one specialist hospital with a lot of surgery experience, but instead look into at least 2 or 3 places, compare the overall results, and then choose. Then you will see that the opinions of each doctor differ in some places and overlap in others. It widens the range of choices so you can select the doctor and hospital that fit you. The patient is also the customer... The hospital and doctor have the power to choose. You have to use that power wisely. The doctor's reputation, the hospital's reputation, and your own luck...that is what matters.
The first surgery should be the one that ends it. If it goes wrong, you end up needing a second and third surgery. That makes life very hard. Please take that deeply to heart. It costs an enormous amount of time and money, and tremendous mental stress comes with it.
These days, because orbital fracture surgery technology has advanced and athletes are treated well from the beginning, it seems the rate of sunken eyes has gone down. In Choi Hon-chul's case, I searched on YouTube and saw a surgery review video. He said the Korean medical team and the American medical team had different opinions, so his diplopia was severe (one side thought the eye muscles were the problem, while the other said the nerves were the problem).
After a lot of deliberation, he chose to go to the U.S., had surgery, and the result turned out well. I am not saying the U.S. is definitely better, but I do think that in the end, it comes down to one’s own effort and choice to meet medical staff who can judge and understand the symptoms accurately. If he had undergone surgery based on the opposing opinion, the result might not have turned out well. After surgery, when he confirmed that the diplopia was gone and hugged the doctor in happiness, the doctor cried. Seeing the patient so happy must have moved him too. I want to meet a doctor with that kind of mindset and skill, and entrust my body to him.
That kind of luck in making a choice leads to results that are enormously different. I heard the American side strongly insisted that their opinion was the correct one. So Choi Hon-chul trusted them and went, I suppose. Let us think about what worked in his favor there.
He had the chance to hear both the opinion of the best medical team in the U.S. and the best medical team in Korea, did he not... And since he was a successful fighter who became famous, he must have also received many opinions from people around him. All of those things came together to produce a comprehensive result, and he ended up choosing the hospital side that strongly insisted on its position.
I had none of those opportunities, and not even enough explanation or room to choose. There was no information. All I was told was: it is an orbital fracture, and if you do not have surgery, the eye will sink in. That was the end of it. I was not told anything at all about the cases where surgery goes wrong. Naturally, doctors do not easily say things like that. They are afraid the patient will get scared and refuse surgery. Still, they are the experts. At least in my case back then, it was trauma-related orbital fracture, not a cosmetic procedure.
Then, even if a patient came in with the wrong understanding, should they not honestly explain the specialty and direct them to better treatment? I do not think the mindset of the doctors back then would have allowed for that at all.
Of course, there are probably conscientious doctors somewhere, but would a university hospital try to send away a patient who would generate high treatment costs? They would think they are experts in their own way and can handle it. Even if things go wrong, ordinary people are in a severely disadvantaged position compared with the other side in a medical dispute.
Ah, and something I remember: when I went into the first surgery, I was taken into the operating room on a moving stretcher, with not a single thread on me and fully conscious. I remember there were at least 5 or 6 people including the doctors and nurses, and there were two female doctors too. I think there were at least 3 women including nurses... I was so embarrassed that I tried to cover my private parts with one leg by bending my knee, and a male doctor who seemed to be under the professor covered me with a tiny scrap of cloth, ;; That still comes to mind from time to time in my life. It was truly embarrassing and humiliating, and the mental shock was huge. As I write this, it is coming back to me again...;;
Anyway, if you go to oral and maxillofacial surgery for treatment, I think they should inform you that there is a surgery that can be done through the nose without shaving your head, and give you the chance to choose... But of course they do not tell you. You know why without me saying it, right?? The more you know, the more you see, and knowledge is power. That is why the patient also needs to study at least a little and become savvy. It seems the patient has to do the homework of learning what kinds of surgical methods exist, what side effects there are, which hospital and doctor have a good character and are skilled, and so on.
Back then, 20 million won was worth far more than 20 million won is now. For an ordinary working-class family, it was a huge amount of money. Between the first and second surgeries, we paid more than 20 million won to Dong-A. And I remember spending more than 14 million won on the third surgery too. What could a 21-year-old who had barely ever been to a hospital know back then... there were no doctor acquaintances nearby, and it was an age without internet... Should I have stayed hospitalized and studied medical textbooks? The importance of information that can be searched quickly, as well as the importance of knowledge and the information and combined opinions of many people with search skills, really stands out.
Well, I have lived like this for 27 years, so why could I not keep living like this in the future too? But if it can be fixed, I want to fix it cleanly, resolve the diplopia, and live the rest of my life with an improved appearance. If anyone has good opinions or hospital information, I want to hear even the smallest things, so I sincerely want to hear a lot of information and opinions from everyone here. And I also hope there will be a category for orbital fracture, sunken eyes, and eye surgery-related topics.