Robin: The retina has been welded back in position; this is such a serious problem that they get you into the hospital right away -- actually, mine took a week. When it was all over, I had a cataract and the waiting list for those is long. If you know the MADD commercial with the drinking glasses, my left eye is a 4 to 5 glasses. First step in the procedure was last week -- they measured my eyeball to get focal length for the new lens.
One nice part -- no pain cells in the eye so nothing hurt.