Was Blind But Now I See

I’d like to thank everyone who has been praying for my recent eye surgery. I meant to provide a blog update before now, but I’ve been swamped catching up on things.

For any who may not be aware, I’ve been dealing with cataracts for some time, and for the last month I was legally blind.

Here’s what happened . . . and what I learned.

What They Did

The good news is that the surgery went very well. The procedure, which involves taking out the current lens in your eye and putting in an artificial one, took about twenty minutes.

I was conscious for the whole procedure. They gave me something which they said would relax me, but I don’t know if they gave me quite enough because I remember forcibly relaxing myself several times in the procedure.

Improvement in my vision was immediate. As soon as the new lens was in, I was no longer legally blind. In fact, it was good enough that–simply in terms of vision–I could have driven home. That’s not allowed, though, because of the anesthesia they give you, so a friend drove me back.

Once I was home I started having repeated experiences of, “Oh! Here’s where I left that small object weeks ago.”

To protect the eye during the first day of healing, they put a clear plastic cover over my eye. I’m also supposed to wear that when I’m asleep for the first week, to keep me from accidentally rubbing my eye.

And I’m taking three kinds of eye drops four times a day–one anti-bacterial (to prevent infection) and two anti-inflammatories.

Not the Solution I Expected

Here’s something I wasn’t expecting: It turns out that one of the anti-inflammatories, prednisol, tastes really bad. I was surprised to learn this, because I didn’t put any of the prednisol in my mouth. The folks at the eye surgeon’s office explained that the eye drops get into your tear ducts, which drain into your throat, so an unpleasant tasting eye drop can result in a bad taste in the back of your mouth.

Who knew?

I told them they need grape or cherry flavored prednisol.

They said, “Just don’t blink. That’s what forces the eye drop into the tear duct. Close your eye instead for a minute.” And it helped.

The Results

Now here’s the really good news: I went back the next day for an post-operative evaluation, they checked my vision, and it was now 20/20! (Meaning: An object that is 20 feet away from me looks the way it would to a person with normal vision at 20 feet.)

From legally blind to 20/20 vision the day after is really good, they said, and they went on to say that my vision should continue to improve for the first two weeks.

I now don’t need glasses to do anything with distance. I don’t need them to drive (that has not been the case ever before, as I was wearing glasses by the time I got my first drivers’ license) or to see objects across the room clearly, etc.

I do still need glasses to read, but only inexpensive, non-prescription ones. Someone on the Internet kindly suggested that they could be had for $1 at the dollar store, so I went by a near by dollar store and got seven pairs for seven bucks.

I decided on a volume purchase because, now that I don’t have to wear my glasses constantly, it’s easy to leave them lying someplace or forget to take them with you–a problem that I knew people had but never really understood. “Why not just wear glasses all the time?” I wondered, not realizing that keeping your reading glasses on can make your distance vision worse.

I Now Have a Minor Superpower

Another thing I didn’t expect is that the lens they put in is treated to have UV protection, so I now have UV protection built into my eye. I still need to wear sunglasses in bright light, simply to reduce the amount of light, but not as much for the UV protection.

Something I had some indication of before surgery was that my color vision would improve. Apparently, I am informed by a kind commenter, all adults start having clouding of the lens by the time they are in their 20s, and thus have some loss of color vision.

With my new lens, WOW! ARE THE COLORS INTENSE! Reds are redder, greens are greener, blues are bluer, etc. It’s like the whole world is now in Technicolor.

Children, apparently, live in a much more colorful world than adults do.

All of the above applies to my right eye, which was the one I had the surgery on. My left eye is scheduled for surgery in September.

So I wanted to thank everyone who has been praying for the surgery and the recovery. It means a lot to me.

What I Learned

The experience has also been valuable to me in that I now have a much better understanding of what it’s like to live with severe vision impairment. There are all kinds of things that blind people have to deal with, and not all of them you would expect. For example: Cooking meat is really difficult. How do you know when it’s done? How do you know it’s not over-done? Or how can you tell if vegetables are fresh or going bad? How do you chop vegetables? I’m not saying that these things can’t be done, but it requires a whole different approach than what sighted people are used to.

I’m just thankful that there is something that could be done to restore my vision, which would not have been the case in the past. A century ago, I would have been stuck and remained functionally (and eventually fully) blind for the rest of my life.

An ongoing part of my own prayers will now be for people whose conditions aren’t as easily treated as mine, that new options will become available and that, until then, they have the help from God and others to deal with the challenges the situation poses.

Won’t you join me?