They poked instruments and a tiny little camera/light into my eyeball to fix a macular hole in the retina. I about stressed out when I learned they would do it with only a local anesthesia. But it turned out to be a not-bad experience...heavy sedation works wonders for the ol' stress levels. Successful in that it stopped the deterioration; not so successful in that I still have "shadows" and some distortion right at the focal point, and 'way blurry in peripheral vision. Sure beats total blindness in that eye however, which is where it was heading before.
Modern medicine--a blessing (what they can do) and a curse (what they put you through to do it).