A Man Of Vision

I mean 'vision' in the optical sense, and that man would be someone besides me.

A little more than 20 years ago, I had become so nearsighted that I could no longer drive a car safely, particularly at night. So I started wearing glasses.

I had LASIK surgery about 7 years ago, and I thought it was the greatest thing since Play-Doh. I no longer needed glasses to drive, or to golf, or to do anything that required distance vision. But the laser played a trick on me, and I found myself needing glasses to read -- at least when the lighting was not ideal. I was able to use the magnifiers that you can pick up in any grocery store, and they worked just fine.

About 4 years ago, I noticed new problems. I was experiencing blind spots, and I knew that I had a floater in my left eye (probably a remnant of LASIK). I saw an optometrist, and she fitted me with new glasses, but they didn't seem to help much, and the problem persisted. I just assumed that my eyes were getting old, and when Paul Harvey came on the radio to talk about macular degeneration, I listened. I kept telling myself that I needed to order some of that ocular nutrition stuff he was selling. But I never got around to it.

About a year and a half ago, I stopped reading for pleasure. I was having too much difficulty with it, and trying to read only frustrated me. And things continued to degenerate, and now I know what the problem is: I have a cataract in my right eye. (If you're wondering why it took so long to get to the doctor, remember, I'm a guy, and that's just the way it is.)



The picture above is a very good rendition of what I see if I look out of my right eye. I can distinguish light from dark, and if there is enough contrast, I can make out some colors, but other than that, there is nothing but a white blur. When looking out of both eyes, I see something like the picture below. Except when the floater drifts into my field of vision in the left eye, and then I can't see anything but a blur. That makes driving a real challenge. And at night, the blur of headlights is too much for me to handle. I'm handicapped by the lack of vision -- the blur and a complete absence of peripheral vision to the right -- and by seeing things that aren't there, as when I see a blur from a headlight that is not actually where I see it. I'm seeing double because my eyes aren't looking in the same direction.



What causes cataracts? No one seems to have a definitive answer, but a Wikipedia article mentions UV exposure, diabetes, and radiation exposure as possibilities. There seems to be a strong hereditary link, and that makes sense to me --- my maternal grandmother, my mother and one of my sisters has had them. Whatever causes them, I doubt that there will ever be a way to prevent them.

The good news is that they are treatable. I commented to Dorothy a few weeks ago that we are lucky to be living in this day and age. Imagine if you had been born 100 years before you were. In my case, I would be a virtual cripple - no back surgeries and no cataract treatment. Not to mention the knee surgeries and my daily dose of the greatest drug ever invented -- Prevacid!

Next Monday morning I will have the offending lens removed and a new one put in its place. Of course I hope for 20/20 vision when it's over, but I'll settle for whatever they can give me. The cloud will disappear and I'm eager to tackle that stack of books on the kitchen counter.