A few weeks ago, I noticed that the colorful produce on the shelves in the grocery store looked a little muted and not as bright as usual. I chalked it up to my eyes being tired.
A week later, the greens and yellows of the vegetables were no brighter and they seemed to be “hazy,” so this little anomaly registered way back in my mind as just one more weird thing.
Then one night I was watching television and couldn’t read the breaking news which was scrolling across the bottom of the screen. I got closer to the television, about four feet away, and finally found out what I’d missed about the last war statistics and another unsolved kidnapping. But I didn’t want to sit in a straight backed chair, four feet from the TV. I wanted to be way across the room in my recliner! Something had to change.
What was wrong with my eyes? Sixty-five years of wearing glasses, thousands of books read, more thousands of hours spent typing and using computers, and almost 69 years of “everyday life” had caught up with my eyes. They were wearing out!
Recalling my annual eye exam last summer with good Dr. Robinson, I remembered he had discussed cataracts with me. I had them, he said, and one eye was afflicted more than the other. I did my own at-home test by covering one eye and then the other, and sure enough, the left eye vision was quite blurry. Last summer, the doctor told me that Medicare pays for cataract surgery after the cataracts reach a certain level. I decided to go for a follow-up eye exam and sure enough, that left eye was now Medicare acceptable! On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst, my left eye had advanced from a 3 to a 7 in just a few months. (Medicare pays when your cataract reaches a 5.)
Many readers have had this surgery, but for those who have not, you might be interested to know that about half the population has a cataract by age 65 and nearly everyone older than 75 has at least one. In some rare cases, babies can have congenital cataracts, caused by a mother’s medical condition during pregnancy, and sometimes they are inherited.
Not all cataracts reach the stage where they should be removed, but if it interferes with vision to the point that it’s unsafe to drive or hard to perform everyday tasks, it’s time to talk surgery. Since it’s difficult for me to watch television and/or read, I figured it was my turn.
Although the procedure for my cataract surgery is involved because of medication I take, and the fact that I’ll need to find people to transport me back and forth to appointments, I will be very glad to have it done. I am not looking forward to having my eye operated on, but it’s reassuring to know that cataract surgery is the most commonly performed type of surgery in the United States.
It’s just remarkable to me that such an operation can be done at all. Removing a “cloudy” lens and replacing it with a good one is simply amazing. Sometimes, I understand, lasers are used in this surgery. This is yet another adventure in aging. So many questions come to mind. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was four years old – going on 65 years now, and like everyone who depends on glasses or contact lenses to be able to see well, vision is the uppermost concern we have.
Will my glasses be changed? Will I be able to have a throwing away party? Probably not. I’ve heard miraculous stories from folks whose vision improves drastically after cataract surgery and this is something I’ll patiently wait to experience.
Hopefully, within a few weeks, when I look at the fruits and vegetables in the grocery store, the colors will again be bright and clear. I’ve gone easy on reading over the last few weeks, but as a special treat, I’ve dug out a copy of my favorite book of all time, “The Source,” and plan to re-read it just as soon as my eyes are once again focused!
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