Life without my glasses has been weird

Here are a few signs that your cataracts might be progressing faster than you thought.

1. You’ve increased the font size on your computer and mobile devices so much you never get a full sentence on one line.

2. Road signs fly past before you can read them. Either the car is getting faster or reading has become more difficult.

3. You actually get into the wrong vehicle. Granted it was same make and model and nearly the same color but the potpourri air freshener was the giveaway.

4. The bank calls after every deposit to give you the mistakes in entering checks.

5. The onscreen television menu on the big TV in the living room isn’t even readable.

The optometrist also tipped me off on the last trip there, saying the cataracts were just forming and nothing to worry about. It wasn’t long before they were something to worry about.

My little brother had the same thing happen to him. Before he hardly knew he had them they had become nice and ripe and he couldn’t pass the driver’s test. Same thing was about to happen to me according to the ophthalmologist. So surgery on the worst eye was scheduled.

The day of the surgery nobody was available to drive me home so I hitched my first Uber from the motel to surgery then back. That was a story in and of itself but we’re talking cataracts here.

After deadening the surgery eye and dilating both eyes and starting an IV connection, they took me into the laser room. There they zapped the snot out of that cataract. Then they walked me into the next room where they put me up on an operating table under bright lights.

They said they were giving me a light dose of anesthesia but I think they skimped a lot on that drug. They made the incision, sucked the cataract out and slipped the new intraocular lens into place before the anesthesiologist had even pushed the plunger all the way down.

They walked me back out of surgery within 10 minutes of taking me inside.

Almost immediately I could tell the difference in my eyesight. As the dilation wore off it got better and I could really see the color difference that amber filter I had been living with had caused.

I struggled to get the lens out of the surgery side of my eyeglasses and finally with the help of the motel desk clerk got it out only to find that walking around without one lens made me walk like a drunk.

The next morning I stole my wife’s fashion sunglasses and drove myself to the follow-up appointment. I was seeing 20/25 in the surgery eye and the doctor and patient were both eager to get the second eye scheduled.

Life without glasses has been weird. Every morning my muscle memory causes me to reach over on the nightstand where my glasses should be. I have to admit the first sharply focused look at the bags under my eyes was jolting. People have been doing a double-take when they see me without glasses.

Now where is that under-eye cream my wife uses?

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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