October 18, 2020 – Sunday (Covid-19 ramping up in 42 states w/spikes and highest numbers of cases and deaths to date, nearly 200,000 Americans dead and counting, country upheaval on so many levels, political mayhem and the election now 16 days away)
I hope I never lose an eyeball.
I know – that sounds a bit “out there”. Not one of your normal thinking points, for sure … not like the usual ones like – how much do baby hippos weigh at birth … or why does one’s nose keep growing throughout their lifetime … or if a train leaving Chicago going eastbound at 500 mph passes a train going westbound, what is the conductor’s name of that second train?
That’s my brain. That’s my brain normally. My brain on Covid-time is _____________.
Anyway, I digress. We all can relate to Covid-Time Brain Syndrome. I haven’t known what day or month it’s been since March! And I’m afraid my gray matter is getting mushier by the minute! But, seriously … I hope I never lose an eyeball. Sight is a wonderful thing.
This past week I had the first of my two eyes “done”. As in cataract surgery. OMG. I’ve had glasses since I was seven. Sugar Plum Fairy Pink cat-eye plastic frames were the first pair in my repertoire. They were beautiful and omg … opened up the world to me. I remember lying on my back in the Ford Falcon station wagon and looking out the windows and I swear I could see EVERY LEAF on EVERY TREE as we drove down the roads homeward. It was fabulous. It was beyond amazing.
Fifty-five some years of glasses and contacts later … here I am thinking about only using readers! Amazing! I had so many glasses over the years including etched/mauve metal cat-eye frames and powder blue ones (both horribly awful on me) and small tortoise-rimmed ovals (which prompted my sister to call me Ben … as in Benjamin Franklin) and huge/half my face clear/tortoise or black framed glasses. I experimented with soft contacts and went through six pairs in the first year (sorry dad). I contaminated them with hair spray or deodorant or ripped them with my nails or tore them with a mascara wand. There were many years of hard lenses (I did have one pair for 9 years! They were great but finally got so thin I had to replace them.) … lost ones and uncomfortable ones necessitating a gazillion eye drops and a few scratched corneas. Along the way I added in reading glasses of various strengths. Corneal edema caused me to switch to gas perm lenses but still the same thing … uncomfortable, lost, eyes changing, dry eyes … and then after 40 years of plastic discs in my eyeballs, I’d had enough so I went back to glasses. And more frames … mostly dark and rectangular or big aviator … until now … my blackish/dark olive ones with the zebra striped arms. I actually like these!
Yesterday, fifty five years later … I had the same experience as my seven year old self – without the Ford Falcon.
I had taken off the patch and was letting my eye acclimate to the extraordinary brightness of my kitchen (and I’m now so glad yesterday was gray and mizzly cuz I would have not been able to cope with any sunshine). As I stood at my kitchen sink I looked out over my yard and realized I could see the leaves on the wisteria vine at the far end of it (and my yard is really big). It was astounding! I’m pretty sure there are berries on my neighbor’s bush, too! Who knew?! And for that matter, my neighbor has a bush I’d never seen either! I don’t think I’ve ever had correction like this – even with contacts all these many, many years.
I was sitting at my computer yesterday at my dining table and looked out my living room window and realized I can see my neighbor’s house! Now, maybe they cut down a bunch of bushes on Friday or maybe my chair is over a bit – but I swear I’ve never seen that mulberry-sided house before from this room!
This has been an amazing “eye wonder”.
Eyeball #2 is scheduled in two weeks. Good. Not soon enough. This new sight is an extraordinary thing but for these two weeks I think I’ll be doing a lot of napping and Hallmark movie watching and catching up on shows/movies on Netflix because I am upside down/cattywompus/off kilter with one eyeball corrected and the other so … well, NOT!
I can manage about 20 minutes of both eyes looking around before the headache starts creeping in … maybe. I can’t focus to read or type (this is an exception). So, I’m finding it best to cover/patch one up and only use one eye at a time. However, when I do that there are issues.
If I cover either eye my depth perception is gone … I put peanut butter on my finger today/not the cracker of my intention. Not that it matters (cuz I’m not going anywhere and no one is coming here) but if I cover my right/bad eye with the patch – I look like a pirate. If I cover my left/good eye with the patch, I have to wear my glasses for my right eye. The glasses catch on the patch and things are a little skewed and I look like a pirate with glasses. You know … one of those dorky pirates that are last picked for the dodgeball team. And if I use only my good, left eye – I can’t see anything up close. Everything is blurry until about 15″ away! My arms aren’t long enough – so, I need to dig up my old readers. I know they’re here somewhere but until I find them, more than not, I am covering up the good/done eye for now. And that’s really okay, too … cuz there are so many floaters still that they are making me crazy!
But, seriously … for those of you with glasses … this is amazing! Life changing. Wondrous. Eye-wondrous.
But, aside from the sheer enormity of being able to see “far” without aid, which in itself is magnificent … the COLORS are so different. I so wish my dad were still here – he was the one I wanted to talk with first about this because I remember him being so awe-struck after his first operation. As am I.
This color change is not something I was expecting! I close my right/undone eye and through my left/done eyeball every line is sharp, crisp and the details are amazing. How did I live without seeing this – for so long that I don’t recall things looking this GOOD? The light is much cooler in nature … it’s whiter/bluer/brighter. I have a poodle guest here this weekend and I can barely look at her without sunglasses on – she is brilliant! (Let me clarify that that is in color only!)
I close my left/done eye and omg … my right/undone eye’s vision is like looking through amber lenses with a soft pink filter! The difference is like having a 100 watt cool blue halogen bulb on as opposed to a 40 watt soft white with a pink scarf over the lamp! The undone eye’s vision makes things have a more Dutch Masters tone to them (I like it!) … and everything is much softer/muted/amber in color. A bit of a soft glow. Blended. It’s cozier than the harsher/blue light. But, I look at my skin through my right eye only and I look like I have jaundice! The color change is so crazy. But, honestly, I’m not sure I like it!
It’s all just so amazing to me the DIFFERENCE!
The only real problem I’ve had is that now I can see EVERY DAMN WRINKLE and every CREASE and every PORE and every SUN SPOT … and OMG … is this what I REALLY look like? I am going to suggest to my opthalmologist that he pair up with a plastic surgeon and offer a combo package … a little lift/cataract bundle. I might not have gone for it with the first eyeball … but pretty sure I’d go for it with the second!
I wonder how things will all look two weeks from now … I know the political scene won’t look any rosier … but everything will be clearer. Sight is an amazing thing. Eye wonder!