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Last night I went to bed hoping that when I woke up this morning my eyesight would be improved. Not much, if any at all. I'm not too unhappy. I see lots better than I did back over the weekend. The most noticeable improvement has been with the way I see colors. Now, after having the cataracts replaced with clear plastic lens I see the same color when I shut one eye or the other.
Previous to having the surgical procedure done on both eyes I apparently saw everything tainted by brown. I didn't know that. I saw what I saw when I looked at things. The fact that everything I saw was apparently tinted by the brown cataract color of my natural lens wasn't something I knew. I didn't even think about the possibility until they put the new lens in my right eye.
It was the flowers for sell at the gardening section of Lowe's that caused me to become aware that the lens in my right eye saw a different color after the operation. There were some pink flowers that were rather startling to me when I closed my left eye, and then looked at them with the repaired right eye. When I closed the right eye and looked at the same flower through my old brown-stained lens they were a dull orange color.
Yesterday, after I had gotten to where I could see everything better through my left eye, the flower was the same deep pink with both eyes. It was after that, even, that I realized that previously I saw all blue colors as green or greenish, and all yellow colors as brownish-orange. I didn't have a clue that my color vision was that far off. I saw what I saw, not what I should have seen.
I don't know what any of this will mean to me in the future or how it will affect me psychologically. Colors are certainly more distinct. If another person with normal vision points out a specific color like pink or blue now, I'll probably see pretty much the same color they see, whereas before, I would have seen orange, and thought it was them that was blind.
This morning I watched a PBS documentary on the wild ducks and geese at Currituck Sound down at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I've seen the same show several times. What else will I watch? Sitcoms? Lawyer or hospital shows. Reality shows showing procreative young people that don't interest me so much any more? I don't procreate anymore, who cares?
This morning after I got up and realized the vision in my left eye had not really improved much after having gotten better for the last couple of days, I started looking at the eyes of the old men and women who were being interviewed for their opinions of the "good ol' days" when sportsmen from the northern cities came down to the coastal plains to hunt the birds.
It was the local people who used to accommodate the rich sportsmen by carving decoys and building boats and hunting blinds for them that were interviewed on this show. Since that doesn't happen anymore, and the area is now a bird refuge, most of the people who did that are either dead or have gotten old. As I watched them being interviewed I looked at their eyes to see if I could tell if they had their eyes worked on. Most of them wore eyeglasses, so it wasn't so easy to assume they had gotten some help.
From the way things look now I'll probably still need to wear eyeglasses in order to read or see things up close. That's fine with me. At least I'll be able to see well, and in living color. The artificial lens the surgeons replaced my old lens with are not just plain plastic lens. They have magnification or whatever to improve my vision. It's sort of like wearing contact lenses or eyeglasses, but they're physically inside my eye.
Some people have their cataracts replaced with lenses that give them what some are calling "super-vision". With the intraocular lenses in place they can see better than 20/20. I don't think that's the way it will be for me. I would like it, but as long as I can see pretty good even if I need eyeglasses, the improvement is humbling.
If I do need to wear eyeglasses the prescription will probably never change once they get it right. The artificial lenses shouldn't change through the short amount of time I have left to live or even if I live longer than expected. That was the real problem was my natural lens were so discolored and inflexible the optometrists couldn't improve my vision with a new prescription. Not enough light was getting through the cataracts to make any improvements through magnification. That's not true anymore.
Presently, I'm wearing my old glasses with my old prescription lenses to type. I can see the words I'm typing really well with my right eye, and even that could probably be improved with reading glasses. The left eye doesn't see that well with or without my old prescription for it. The surgeons tried to correct some astigmatism in my left eye, and that may be the reason I'm not seeing so well out of it yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract_surgery
They used a different type of artificial lens to address the astigmatism. What with the reading and research on cataract surgery, I'm of the impression that they may be able to use a laser to clear up my vision in my left eye, but I'm no expert on what's possible.
It may continue to improve. From the results I'm having this morning, however, it may not. I got what I got from these procedures. They were done by young guys in the last phase of studying for their surgeon's licenses. An experienced surgeon may have done better, but I'm fairly happy with their results. What if I lived in Somalia instead? God bless America.
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