Yesterday, I underwent the first of two surgeries to remove cataracts from my eyes. For some reason the idea of having my eye cut open spooked me beyond belief, and I was nervous going into it. The experience from home to home took about three hours, but the experience in the operating room about fifteen minutes.
I awake partially coming out of sedation and could see and feel the surgeon poking about in my eye. When he unstrapped my head and announced “its all over” the first words out of my moth were “everything is fuzzy.”
This morning, I had to see the surgeon again, I think he forgot to sign his work and wanted to check to see if he did. He told me the story about what I said and I told him the disappointment I felt about not seeing things sharp and clear. He asked if I were an Engineer. “I am,” I answered. “That explains it. Engineers, and doctors all like to see things sharp and well-defined.”
He told me to put my chin on the machine and my forehead against the strap. I did, and he began flipping lenses and asking which one is better? After a few minutes of this he reported to me that the astigmatism in my eye before surgery measured 250, and with the new lens it is now at 100. So I guess I’m stuck with some astigmatism for the remaining few years of my life. He informed me that I could have chosen to go with new lens designed to end astigmatism at an out-of-pocket cost of $1450 extra per eye. Of course I chose not to get an experimental thing like that with such an exorbitant extra cost.
He lectured further and told me that as my eye returns to its normal dilation things will get better. By then I will be complaining about the right eye as well. In the meantime, I now have a situation where I don’t need glasses for my left eye, but I need them for my right eye. I guess I have to cut my old glasses in half and try a monocular vision correction.
Filed under: Biography, family, health care | Tagged: Astigmatism, Cataract, Eyes, Surgery, vision | 2 Comments »
