When I wrote last about my cataract surgery, I described how strange it was to have a world that had suddenly contracted. My close vision was good, but anything beyond arm’s length was a blur. I knew it was temporary, but knowing that didn’t make it any less frustrating.
That stage is over. I have new glasses, and the world is back in focus.
The optometrist fit my glasses eight days after the second surgery, just as he had promised. But he spent next to no time on my prescription.
Since I was eight and a half, I’ve spent most of every appointment staring at an eye chart answering the question, “One or two?” as the doctor flipped lenses inside the refraction machine.
“One or two?”
Then, “One or three?”
Eventually, after enough adjustments, both the doctor and I were satisfied.
This time, he flipped straight to a setting in the machine, did one iteration of “One or two?” and said, “Okay, that’s it. Just what I thought.”
“What about the prisms?” I asked. My old glasses had prisms to correct my double vision, and he hadn’t adjusted those settings at all.
“Those won’t change after the cataract surgery.”
What could I do but trust him? But I worried he hadn’t done enough to ensure my new glasses would work right.
My daughter drove me straight from the optometrist’s office to the optical shop. There, we discovered one calculation was missing from the prescription paperwork. So much for the optometrist’s focus, I thought. My worry returned.
The optical shop assured me they could contact the doctor and get the missing information. “We’ll have them ready in a week to ten days,” I was told. I paid for the glasses, and off I went.
Less than a week later, I got a text. The glasses were ready. Another plea for my daughter to drive me, and the next day, I picked them up.
Apparently, the optometrist knew what he was doing, despite his inattention to detail that sent my worries into overdrive. I put on the new glasses, and I could see—at all distances.
I can drive again. I can read street signs. I can watch television. I can look across a room and recognize who’s there. And I can see the mountains again.
Almost everything is back to normal, and many things are better than before. I need the glasses for distance, but as I reported after the first surgery, I can read, write, work on my computer, and manage many ordinary tasks without glasses, which I couldn’t do before cataract surgery.
There is one adjustment I have to make, however. I can no longer read my tablet comfortably when I’m lying in bed. Before surgery, I could hold it just a few inches from my nose and read without difficulty. Now, that distance is too close for my new eyes. I have to hold the tablet further away, which isn’t comfortable.
I have reading glasses that work well when I need extra close vision during the day. But I don’t wear them to bed. Some habits are hard to give up, and apparently one of mine is reading with a tablet inches away.
Still, I’m not complaining. A little inconvenience is a small price to pay for having the world back in focus—at least from arm’s length to the mountains.
What is something you didn’t fully appreciate until you saw it—or experienced it—again?
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