You have to be so cautious with your eyes because they can so easily be damaged beyond repair. My eyesight started to deteriorate when I reached forty, like most people. My friends and family put that down to the fact that I was sitting in front of a computer screen for about twelve hours a day and had done since I was twenty-eight. Still, there was nothing I could do about that, that was my work. I was self-conscious of wearing glasses at first, but you soon become over that.
My eyes continued to get worse and at a greater rate than friends of a similar age, but I considered that that was merely the luck of the draw. However, one morning about ten years later, I woke up and it was as if my glasses were dirty. I spent the next day or two cleaning them, but I could not seem to shift the dirt on the right lens.
By that time, my eyesight was too bad to see without specs and I only had the one pair. I had moved to rural Thailand and acquiring a second pair was no easy achievement.
After a couple of days of cleaning and polishing my glasses a friend offered to take me the 75 km to the nearest decent hospital. The opthamologist looked in my eyes and said: “I am very sorry, but you are senile”. I had been called mad before, but not senile. I was fifty-two. It is not really a statement that beggars a question, so I only looked at him and put on a glum expression, hoping that I was not confirming his prognosis.
He looked at me and then looked in his desk, pulled out a book and opened it. “You have premature senile cataracts” he corrected himself. I was not sure whether that was any better as it implied that other parts of me may begin failing early as well. Anyway, I thanked him and left. I had no idea what to do next, but at least I knew better that to continue wasting my time attempting to clean my already spotless glasses.
My wife is very practical and she arranged for us to go to an even better hospital 650 km away. I was seen by one of the hospital’s senior eye surgeons within the hour and was told that I had a cataract in my right eye and that there was a good chance that I would develop one in the left eye too. Then she shocked me by asking: “Do you want me to remove it now?”
It was too big a decision for me to make there and then without any information, so we discussed the operation, she gave me a leaflet and I made an appointment to return the next day. The next day, I was in the operating seat. I was not going to have Laser Correction, but the full replacement of the lens. The operation is carried out under local anaestetic and does not hurt but it can become uncomfortable at times.
The surgeon cut a small opening of two millimetres a little to the outside of the colour of my eye and injected some liquid. She then vibrated that liquid with ultra-sound to break up the lens in my eye and washed the pieces of lens out with more fluid before inserting the new lens through the same hole.
By this stage of my life, I could just see light and dark with my right eye, but at one point my eyesight just ceased entirely. It was like watching a window shatter before your eyes only to realise that there was nothing but blackness beyond. Now I definitely was blind in that eye. There was a bit of discomfort, but the surgeon kept talking to me and then she said: “Wait, wait, wait, can you see me?”
And I could.
Absolutely perfectly. Better than I would have been able to fifteen years before, but everything was so bright that it dazzled. I had not noticed how dingy my world had grown to be. A cataract is like having a net curtain over a window, it blocks out a great deal of light. Therefore, the first thing you become aware of when you have had a cataract removed is a flood of light. Your world literally is a brighter place – to such an extent that the light hurts.
Be cautious with light after the surgery, it cannot cause lasting damage, but it really does hurt. A passing car can reflect sunlight into your eye and catch you unawares. If you are driving or riding a bike, it could be very dangerous. Another danger is reflection. You have an open wound on your face which can be infected by wind-borne contamination.
The week following the operation is a lot more dangerous than the procedure itself. You have an open wound in your eye which they do not stitch. It is left to repair itself, which is not a problem, if you take precautions.
You have to put two kinds of drops in your eye four times a day and avoid getting water in your eye at all costs. That means do not go out in the rain and do not wash your hair in the shower. Dirt and consequent infection are your main enemies, so put the drops in regularly, avoid dust (and the powdered dog faeces mixed in with it) and all water and be very wary of light.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of subjects, but is now involved with Designer Spectacles. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Spectacles Direct.