On your long walks, you'd always have an audiobook plugged into your ears and preoccupy your mind with the scenes inside a written story instead of looking around at the details of the buildings, the flowers, and the faces of passersby. You wouldn't run into things, you'd still use your eyes to find your way and not make dangerous mistakes, but you'd be inside your head, a sort of wandering phantom, disconnected from the landscape.
You wouldn't carry your camera anymore. You'd have your iPhone to take a picture if the occasion arose, but the occasion would rarely arise. Where years ago you'd have come home from one day with 200 photographs, you'd have 5 on a good day, but more often only one or none.
You find yourself listening to television, not watching. After you heard yourself complain a few times about the annoyance of the "flashing light" of TV, you'd stop saying that, and you'd develop the habit of looking down into a solitaire game on your iPad, not because it could possibly be interesting, but because it was a way of not looking at the moving, glittering screen.
You would turn back on a scenic mountain path because it didn't feel safe and you could accept your partner going up ahead of you and then coming back to tell you how it looked.
You would hesitate to drive, maybe quit altogether, and then even as a passenger feel uneasy looking out onto a dramatic panorama. You'd feel afraid at something you used to love to gaze upon. The whole idea of the pleasure of traveling would dim. What is there, really, to see? Why bother?
When a week's worth of your shirts were hanging to dry on the shower rod, you'd notice that everything was black, gray, or dark grayish blue and you'd think, I didn't do that on purpose. You'd consider shopping for something more interesting but find the prospect of browsing in shops utterly boring.
You might stop reading books on paper and read only on a lit up screen and turn up the brightness and bump up the print size. You might take your morning break from reading and writing, thinking you'll be back later, but then never come back. You'd get caught up in conversations and audiobooks and the sound of the television.
If visual limitation descended upon you slowly, would you know it, or would you adapt, wearing a hat, walking to audiobooks, playing solitaire by the TV, figure you'd grown tired of taking photographs, decide that travel and shopping were lackluster bourgeois pursuits, and so forth?
If so, and then if one day you found out you have cataracts and they can easily do surgery that restores your vision, you would look back on so many things you'd done to compensate for the loss of vision. What was disparate would suddenly cohere: You were withdrawing from the visual world and mentally adjusting. You were losing vision in your eyes and losing vision in your mind. You were going blind and blinding yourself to all the things you were doing to adjust to this encroaching blindness. You were building the inner world for yourself that a blind person needs, but you won't go blind. The surgery is simple. It's even so good that it will let you go without glasses for the first time since you were a child. And knowing that the restoration of vision will take place, suddenly you see coherent meaning in all those adjustments you made, resignedly drifting into the life of a blind person.
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127 comments:
Cataract surgery will change your life. Anyone considering having it (and, obviously, needing it) should have it done. You'll wish you'd have done it sooner.
This is not new.
Part of training women to defend themselves is to teach them to hold their shoulders back, lift their chin up, and be aware of the world around them.
Men do the same issue but for different reasons.
If so, and then if one day you found out you have cataracts and they can easily do surgery that restores your vision, you would look back on so many things you'd done to compensate for the loss of vision.
Some people don't mind being shut off.
Others do mind.
As people age some tend to fall into dementia as well. A similarly slow developing process.
Use it or lose it.
Git 'er done.
When I was 18 I had to get a medical exam in order to be admitted to college. Part of that exam was a vision test which I failed. I was sent to an optometrist who used a phoropter (the one with movable lenses) to determine my eyeglass prescription. And when I got my glasses, oh my! I could see the leaves on trees and the rain as it fell to the ground. I could see the details of peoples faces without strain. I could read books and sheet music and see the details of photos and pictures unlike anything I'd ever known before. I grew accustomed to having clear sight and the initial magic faded of course. But I can still invoke that exact moment of wonder and revel in the joy and happiness I felt. Sometimes, when life becomes sad and shaded, I think back to that day and my world lightens up ever so much.
I don't need it (yet) but I for one am looking forward to cataract surgery. I'm horribly near-sighted (have been since childhood), and the possibility of regaining nearly normal vision without donning contacts or glasses is appealing on a deep emotional level.
Congratulations on your impending excellent vision!
You need your eyesight. We need your vision.
"And when I got my glasses, oh my! I could see the leaves on trees and the rain as it fell to the ground. I could see the details of peoples faces without strain. "
I still remember that experience, and I was in preschool when it happened. Carpet was a real wonder too.
It will be an interesting evolution to watch how humans adapt to far outliving their ability to have offspring.
If you can live to 200, why should you not be able to have offspring at 180? And the best kind of immortality is not getting old, not staying old longer..
At about 24, on the realization that I was having trouble reading road signs at a distance, I got my eyes tested and found I needed glasses. The very next weekend after I got the glasses, I went up north and happened to look up into the sky at night, and was stunned cold stupid. I had completely forgotten what the night sky looked like - the stars, the Milky Way, the planets. It was more beautiful and amazing than I remembered but it all came flooding back instantly. I was so overwhelmed in that moment that I cried.
Mom was about 83 when the doctor told her she had cataracts. The surgery was amazingly simple, and the results astonishing. She's 88 now and sees better that I do at 63. She is endlessly entertained just looking out the dining room window, watching the antics of squirrels and birds at the birdfeeder. The biggest change was her perception of color...she tells me everything was gray before she had it done. It was like having lights turned on.
If you were blind, we'd cut you some slack.
I know that's bad according to the (blind-ish) vortex. We're supposed to fly off the handle at disabled people cause that way we're treating them like full human beings.
Who knows, maybe better vision will result in less Althouse hostility re guys in wheelchairs.
Maybe she'll be less into being a DJT apologist when she can see clearly.
I dunno.
So glad you have better vision to look forward to, but isn't it interesting how many compensating behaviors and strategies we adopt, often unconsciously, as we age and are forced to make compromises? As a trivial example, how propitious that they invented rear-view cameras just as we reached the stage when turning backward to navigate in or out of a parking space became burdensome.
Looks like a Borsalino.
When you have cataracts, but all you're getting is another new glasses/contacts prescription, you feel your eyesight is declining and that's just the best they can do and it's only going to get worse. It was a blast of new meaning to find out I have cataracts and to understand what the surgery does. The loss of vision has all sorts of dimension to it that I'm figuring out just this week. There are so many behavioral and mental adjustments you make. But if there is a cure, you're not going to keep using those adjustments, and what had previously been absorbed as natural can now be looked at in a new way.
For example, I don't know if my lack of interest in travel is based on the vision limitation, but it might be. I may have been feeling that it's just not that valuable to go look at things because I can't see them very much.
Be careful not become too lost in your own internal worlds. I'm an introvert who spends a fair amount of time ruminating and living a sort of internal life I suppose. I'm guilty of not observing my surroundings, of not noticing that someone shaved off a beard or changed a hairstyle for weeks at a time. I've failed to notice pretty significant changes in local landmarks that I drive by every day for literally months (and when I finally noticed and point it out to another person they're nonplussed "What?! Where've you been? It's been that way for months!" is pretty funny).
Is that black hat a trilby or a fedora?
Practice Tip: you need time with your grandchildren to keep feeling young. They understand you and they love to learn from you. You are a source of wisdom and understanding alive and placed in their family just for them. And they are quite teachable. Bridge, golf, history of the family... etc.
About six years ago, I was examining recruits and said to myself, "These kids seem to have lens blurriness on the left."
It then occurred to me that I had a left cataract. I had it removed and had the right one done about two years later because the difference was noticeable when reading.
The surgeon, a friend of mine for years, offered to use lenses that adjusted but they were $7000 more per eye and I said No. They would probably need some future adjustment and I did not mind wearing glasses to read. It only affected near vision and I use about 2.5 diopter half lenses. I buy them in the drug store.
"Some people don't mind being shut off."
If you read my post, you'd see it's not that simple.
You adjust to a slow loss, and it's a mental adjustment, where you maintain your balance so that you don't think of yourself as being shut off. If one day you woke up blind, of course you would "mind being shut off." But if the loss moves in slowly, you adjust slowing, and there's no perception of "being shut off," so the issue of whether you would "mind" does not arise consciously. Maybe some day you'd cross a sudden line, like if you were denied a driver's license renewal, and then you'd get upset.
I think people who do go blind find a way to live and don't just feel bad about it all the time. I must say, I really dislike the attitude of your statement, "Some people don't mind being shut off."
Typo I corrected in my last comment: "If one day you woke up bland..." What a concept!
When I had my cataracts fixed, my first two thoughts were "When did they put all of those towers up on the hills," and "Holy shit, are those doors on my new house really THAT orange?" It creeps up on you, and I agree: cataracts box you in. True blindness must really suck.
God Bless and best wishes.
Before implantable lenses, cataract surgery was a bigger deal.
Monet had his "blue period" due to cataracts. He had one eye done but never had the other.
de Gaulle wore the thick glasses that were needed until the implanted lenses.
My ophthalmologist friend was one of the first eye surgeons to use the soft implantable lenses. He was participating in a study for the FDA. He saw how important they were going to be and got his entire family to borrow all the money they could and invest in the company that made them. He and they made a fortune. His wife took over the Ritz Carlton for his 40th birthday party.
Glasses every couple of years prevent an eye injury, from a bit of gravel thrown up by a passing car.
Cataract surgery is doubly awesome for those who've had to wear glasses their entire lives and now have near perfect vision. The new lenses correct for distance, astigmatism and, optionally, the near vision part of your field-of-view as a substitute for reading glasses (supposedly-I declined the option).
I kept getting more and more keying errors at work. It was a mystery to me why this was happening. I tried to be more careful but the errors kept piling up. Someone suggested I get my eyes checked. I resisted this suggestion for awhile but finally scheduled an appointment with an optometrist. I got my first set of eyeglasses and the errors stopped.
Now many years later I have learned I have cataracts that are still small but enlarging and if I live long enough I will need the cataract operation. I’m on a six-month appointment schedule. I asked him, “Why don’t we wait until I notice my eyesight is effected?” His reply was that I would likely not notice any deterioration until it was very advanced because the brain compensates and we THINK we are seeing things fine.
I love Brian Regan's bit about going to the eye doctor. "How could instantly improved vision not be at the top of your TO DO list?"
The journalist I.F. Stone had bad vision, which became worse in his final years.
His neighbor Clarice Feldman wrote an article about him, titled Izzy, Esther, and Me: Memories of I.F. and Esther Stone, which contains the following passages about his eyesight.
-----
.... Even then Izzy's eyesight was poor and his routine was as follows. He'd remove his thick-lensed glassed, put on goggles, walk to the diving board, dive in, and swim to the end of the long pool. He'd repeat this several times and then join the conversation. Among the regulars were Nina Totenberg and Richard Perle. Richard and Izzy often debated whether Reagan was right to force the Soviet Union to its knees by escalating their defense costs. ....
Izzy's eyes grew even weaker, and he was hard at work on his book on Socrates. Esther [Mrs. Stone] got him an early-version computer with large-type letters. Izzy had always typed his own work and could not adjust to the idea of working with a stenographer but could not manage a typewriter. As bright as he was, he was technologically a klutz. Until he got the hang of it, he'd walk over in the evenings, knock on our door, and ask our son for help, which was gladly offered, the two of them walking arm by arm across the street to retrieve a days' work accidentally dropped or some such catastrophe. Then Izzy would show David his very valuable old books, and Esther would give him some cookies as recompense.
In time, Izzy's health no longer permitted swimming, and we saw him less and less. Once after the Soviet Union fell I ran into him. He said, "Richard was a hero. I was wrong about the Soviet Union. He was right."
I hope the surgery goes well and that you have an excellent recovery. Take care of your peepers, as my wife says.
I'm due, maybe past due. My eye doctor tells me that for about one out of every four hundred patients the operation is not successful. I've had a few operations go south, although not in a catastrophic way. Not yet. I don't think Mother Nature is rooting for you in old age. I'll go next year. Trepidation and anxiety are appropriate.
I've always enjoyed your photography, Professor. I think you have a lot of natural talent. I look forward to the pictures you make with new eyes (so to speak). How good it is that we live in a time when this is possible.
Good luck & godspeed.
Jesus effin' Christ, anti-de Sitter space -- do you always have to be such a cranky douchebag? Is there not a moment when you're not stewing about Trump? A lot of us made it through eight years of Obama with some semblance of equanimity.
We live in a sensible world. Do what you can, when you can, if you can, within reason. Good luck.
My 92 year old mother still lives...alone....in the house where I grew up.
It's difficult to separate the hearing loss, and vision loss from the mental and physical exhaustion of age. My Mom has given up reading because she can't see the words. The TV is always too loud. She reads lips. She tells me things twice because she's afraid of forgetting. I'm sure she has made other adjustments as well.
"For example, I don't know if my lack of interest in travel is based on the vision limitation, but it might be. I may have been feeling that it's just not that valuable to go look at things because I can't see them very much."
You don't know. You may have been. This is the beginning of greater self-understanding. If you keep going down this path, you may even question your oh-so-intellectual, oh-so-rational rationalizations for something you happened to be feeling due to something or other. It is a virtue. It has a name.
optionally, the near vision part of your field-of-view as a substitute for reading glasses (supposedly-I declined the option).
That is what I declined as it was a lot more expensive and I tend to avoid gadgets.
The reading glasses I buy are $20.
After years of coke bottles, I got Lasik. Unfortunately, I ended up with worse vision than before. My sister's husband has become very wealthy in lasik and cataract surgery. He just didn't do so great with my eyes.
I am actually hoping for cataracts since that's the only way a doctor will touch my eyes now. So far no such luck.
Wishing you beautiful vistas Althouse!
My 92 year old mother still lives...alone....in the house where I grew up.
It's difficult to separate the hearing loss, and vision loss from the mental and physical exhaustion of age.
My mother was 95 when she needed her cataracts done. The Chicago ophthalmologist told her she was too old.
I had her come to California and had a friend do her cataracts. Another friend did her anesthesia and she loved him.
She lived to 103.
I had it done last year. I had been wearing glasses since second grade (I'm 65 now), and had the usual list of horrors -- extreme near-sightedness, astigmatism, etc.. The surgeon asked what acuity I would like so, since I am a pilot, I asked for 20/15. Not a problem. Had both eyes done, one a week apart from the other. They were off a bit on the acuity, but I have simple glasses to go from 20/20 to 20/15. Why wait? Do it now!
Best Wishes!
Getting older is not for the weak at heart. Plans to do less are mini surrenders. Keep fighting the good fight. That aphorism about keeping up high standards can become an auto-immune Attack on the older who need to lower their standard that they apply to themselves. Approve of all you do. You are valuable. Incredibly so.
"Cataract surgery is doubly awesome for those who've had to wear glasses their entire lives and now have near perfect vision. The new lenses correct for distance, astigmatism and, optionally, the near vision part of your field-of-view as a substitute for reading glasses (supposedly-I declined the option)."
That describes me. I've needed glasses since I was about 9 and have worn contacts for more than 50 years. I'm really excited about the big improvement I'm getting so I don't feel bad at all about having cataracts. Plus, I knew my vision was getting very bad and now I have a reason and a solution — a solution that beyond a solution.
I will get astigmatism and near-sightedness corrected, but I think I will reject the kind of lens that corrects closeup vision because I could never adapt to progressive lenses and I'm used to putting on reading glasses. I'm afraid I wouldn't be satisfied with the closeup correction and that reading glasses make it clearer. I don't want the distance vision to be less good because of this tricky extra thing.
I wonder if your aversion to the fish eye lens was an early symptom?
Welcome to the world unleashed by cataract surgery. Having worn glasses since I am 5 -- I threw the first two pairs into the Atlantic in response to Johnny4Eyes over and over again. I adjusted sort of. I gave up athletics. Eventually I became a scuba diver because my poor vision was neutralized underwater. Nothing prepared me for the world that opened to me when my eyes were uncovered. If it is proposed to you, DO NOT HESTIATE.
Doc: "You have a Cataract" Patent: "No, I have a Rinkin Continentar."
This is so weird. My wife just had her first eye done Monday (first diagnosed 23 years ago), and is amazed at the clarity already, seeing some improvement in sharpness each day (20/40 the day of the surgery). If I hadn't insisted on a birding trip to Sri Lanka I'm not sure she wouldn't have just continued to "adapt," as Ann chronicled.
Don No,
Thanks for the civility BS.
You and I are nearly the same age as near as I can figure. I'm a scientist, but not an eye scientist, so you might appreciate the experiences of another semi-educated person who's gone through this.
I had my first cataract surgery 7 years ago now. I knew the vision in my left eye was getting significantly worse, and I asked the eye Dr if laser would help. After the exam he said "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is you're not a candidate for laser surgery, but the good news is that we can fix the eye by cataract surgery."
That surgery is detailed here: I Can See Clearly Now...
It made an amazing difference, but I was not eyeglass free because of an astigmatism.
For six years, that left eye has stayed stable (except for a PVD and a retinal hemorrhage out of the blue), and the right eye continued to degrade, until it was bad enough for cataract surgery, about a year ago. That operation didn't go quite as well, and I need a vitrectomy shortly afterwards. But who needs eyeball jelly anyway?
Again, the story is here: So Here It Is . . .
So far things are OK . . .
I had cataract surgery on both eyes last summer. I chose the implant for near vision as I do so much within arms length. I have no problems putting on mascara, seeing tiny detail up close unlike my sister who chose the implant for distance vision. She was unpleasantly surprised that her near vision was much worse after getting her distance implants. I never had to wear reading glasses, but did wear glasses or contacts for distance, so nothing has changed after my choice of implants for near vision. Each to their own though.
My grandfather's reaction after his first cataract was taken care of:
"Why is everything so bright?"
How long had the world been dim for him?
And it's easy and quick.
Fun fact: they figured out that they could do this kind of replacement after WWII pilots got acrylic shards in their eyes and tolerated them (no inflammation).
God bless you, and thank you for everything you do for your readers. You are in my prayers.
This struck me as a very profound, powerful and personal sharing. Best of luck in having an excellent outcome. And, rest assured, Meade is still very handsome and your sunrises are beautiful.
I had cataract surgery in both eyes about ten years ago. The thing I wish I had known beforehand is that, when your lenses are plastic and can no longer adjust focus themselves, you can experience disorientation in any task that requires quick changes from distant to close vision--for instance, in driving, when you need to quickly check the dashboard or assess how close you are to the side of the road. It requires time and patience to figure out how to adjust for this. Exercise great caution the first time you try to drive a really winding road.
I will get astigmatism and near-sightedness corrected, but I think I will reject the kind of lens that corrects closeup vision because I could never adapt to progressive lenses..
What I did, on my doctor's advice, is get one eye with optimum far vision, and the other a little less distant (~1 diopter?) so I had better near vision is the second eye. Not good enough to read, but good enough that I could see clearly at arms length. The brain compensates and I don't notice the difference between the two eyes. I'm glad of that choice. Objects seen by the distance eye alone are blurry until they're about 4' away.
Be sure to get one eye at a time done. You'll be amazed at what white looks like again.
It's a grand time to be an old fart. Lots of grease for the skids.
Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old, but even young she was nothing to look at, so you can just imagine. #TrumpBible
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/a-few-more-trumpbible-verses
Very soulful post.
Now about me: refuse to get smartphone for all the reasons you state and a few others. And I wrote ads for three different carriers over the last 15 years. It's a time suck machine.
After getting her implants for distance vision, my sister for the first time had to get bifocals so she could see her dashboard in her car, or so she didn’t constantly have to put on glasses, take off glasses. She was very frustrated that she couldn’t even see what she was eating decently without her readers. Everyone’s eyes are different, I don’t know how many people are dissatisfied with the distance implants. I do know I love my near vision implants.
My favorite days are the days that are gray. But then the sunny days surprise me with delight.
Good luck on the surgery!
Watch some videos of the surgery itself, if you’re not squeamish. It is fascinating. I knew exactly what the doc was doing as he was doing it by watching the process in several videos. There is no pain and you cannot see a thing except a light. If there’s no complication it’s over in what seemed like 5 or 10 minutes.
Madmen media, antifa, Stroszk in the summer
Playing Resistance bureaucrat
In the dumps with the Trumps
As some Virtuous pumps
Her way into a pussy hat
With a tariff chip on his shoulder
Feeling (& looking) kinda orange
Trump tweeted the status-quo-round
With this very unpleasing sneezing & wheezing
The Old order crashes to the ground
Some all-hot half-shot heading for a hot spot,
No longer an angry little Rocket Man
While some pleasant dog mascot tied his leash into a knot round poor Meade's hand
Now young Scott (Walker) finally found a tender spot
and throws the unions in the sand
And some Show-your-work forget-me-not whispers:
The Brewers are in earshot, save the buckshot, and quotes Dylan
Yey, she was blinded by the light...
I had my cataract surgery at age 68, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where it was half-price compared to the same in the USSA. In Mexico, it would have cost 1/3 price.
Though I'd had Strabismus surgery as a youth and slightly compromised vision (needing glasses) for decades, I now can see to drive, read blogs and the Economist Magazine--all without glasses until an hour or so passes and my eyes tire--all of which represents a great improvement.
Althouse without glasses. Seeing the world for the first time, again.
Wondering if you were riding your bike less as a result of your eyesight? That and hiking will once again be enjoyable. Take care and speedy recovery.
My mother was 95 when she needed her cataracts done.
Her problem is macular degeneration. She gets monthly injections, but still you have to wonder. Which clock is going to run out first??
"Wondering if you were riding your bike less as a result of your eyesight?"
I'm wondering too. I'll find out next spring. Mountain biking requires attentiveness to rocks and roots on the path.
With cataracts, there's a mysterious vagueness to things. You can see but you can't see.
From the Broadway musical "It/Then."
You learn to stand alone at last
So brave and bold and strong and stout
You learn somehow to like the dark
And even love the doubt
You learn to hold your life inside you
And never let it out
You learn to live and die and then to live
You learn to live without
You learn to live without
You learn to live without
Here's my story.
Wore glassess (nearsighted) all my life but ten years ago, the Optometrist said she saw cataracts and sent me to an Opthamologist. It is the safest surgery there is, so he said. But I said let's do just one for now and the other later. These are my eyes after all. He grumbled about my turning 65 before the second surgery and not making as much but we went ahead with the one eye. A year later we did the second. Have perfect vision for distance (over 4-5 feet) but still need glasses to read and that is so often that I find myself wearing them around the house all the time.
Buy the reading glasses from a rack in Costco or any drugstore. Have them all over the place so when I forget, there is a pair nearby. Cost is under $20.
But on trips outside, I am without glasses and I LOVE IT.
You will too. I have not had a moments problems except that after ten years one eye began to lessen in focus and vision that was noticeable when trying to read distant road signs. So went back in and in a ten minute procedure, they lasered that lens to knock off the debris that sometimes forms on the backside of the lens. Fixed the problem and I am back to 100% 20-20+ vision.
Go for it Althouse; it is a near certain winner.
Good luck. As we age it is critical to get mental stimulation to keep our brains healthy. This is one way.
I won't recount Charlie Munger's cataract surgery story but that was about 40-50 years ago. Thank goodness doctors and equipment companies have an incentive to constantly improve.
When you have cataracts, but all you're getting is another new glasses/contacts prescription, you feel your eyesight is declining and that's just the best they can do and it's only going to get worse.
Good grief, you need a new optometrist or whoever prescribes your contacts. Any competent one will tell you you're developing cataracts before you even notice it yourself, and will tell you when it's time to consider surgery.
I got lenses optimized for distance, but one is monofocal and the other is extended depth of field. This works well--great distance vision, and I'm able to read without glasses if I have to, though it's still more comfortable to wear readers when possible. With two monofocals you will *need* readers to read at all, and with two multifocal lenses your distance vision may not be as good.
I’ve needed glasses as long as Althouse. I remember getting my first set of glasses and discovering that there were more than six stars.
Good luck AA!
Althouse is gonna run an experiment. Obviously it's very flawed because there's so many variables. But, she's looking for implications beyond that which the other testimonials in this thread are describing. Yes, it's obvious that folks can see better. But, are there secondary and more distant implications? This is what Althouse is looking at (not to mention my first comment).
Anywho, there's an even harder experiment to run. What if you've always had and still have perfect eyesight? There's no way to know what I'm missing missing. Thankfully. Presumably.
“I'm due, maybe past due. My eye doctor tells me that for about one out of every four hundred patients the operation is not successful. I've had a few operations go south, although not in a catastrophic way. Not yet. I don't think Mother Nature is rooting for you in old age. I'll go next year. Trepidation and anxiety are appropriate.”
Don’t wait too long. Hyper mature cataracts can get calcified and the chance of something going wrong increases. Plus, the pressure in your eyes may increase dramatically with hyper mature cararacts, not a good thing.
I got monovision lenses, one near vision and one far. I'd been doing that for years with contacts anyway. I do need glasses for arms length work, like desktop PC and cooking. I can get by driving, outdoors, tv watching and cell phone no glasses at all.
And I can buy ANY cool sunglasses I want.
Althouse probably started with the hard contacts like I did.
Whew, that was something.
I am so involved in health care litigation (and many years ago I defended the lead American researcher with the Kresge Eye Institute who imported radial keratotomy to America after studying it with the Russian inventor, Dr. Fyodorov), that I forget that medical laypersons -- even smart and tremendously well-informed ones like Althouse -- can be struck with fear over something like, "cataract surgery."
Don't worry, Althouse. You are newly on Medicare, right? It's a procedure that won't cost you much of anything, and yet is still nicely profitable for your ophthalmologist such that it is still attracting great surgical talent, research, and equipment advances.
Complications -- with experienced, high-volume operators -- are rare and usually not serious.
Results are routinely fabulous. The more you learn about it (indeed all of ophthalmic surgery), the more amazing it is.
You will do fine, Althouse, and I expect that you will be delighted and I hope you blog about it some more; I will read avidly because I am absolutely, certainly, just about five years behind you now just as I was as a Michigan undergrad. I hope that my Medicare enrollment and my need for cataract surgery are timed coincidentally. I expect they will be.
Reading your post, I got the vague impression (I expect I may be mistaken) that the diagnosis of cataracts was a surprise(?) for you. But with regular eye exams (very important for anyone with any family history of any eye diseases, and everyone of our age group), cataracts can be detected, and merely watched, for a long time. So maybe you were communicating that you have been aware of developing cataracts for a long time, as opposed to just subconsciously reacting to the symptoms.
Anyway, I bid you every good wish for safe and successful surgery and a speedy and uneventful recovery.
My mother was a talented painter; in her 70s and early 80s the color palette in her pictures drifted slowly to more drab landscapes and then she stopped painting altogether. She knew she had cataracts that would require surgery but resisted with all her might until she was told outright that she would be blind without it. She had the surgery and -- hateHateHATED the results. Everything was too bright, all the colors were wrong, and the grime and dust in her house that she had effortlessly overlooked for years were now something she had to spend some effort to ignore. She never resumed painting and still complains about how things look to her. Clearly not the best model to follow.
I find this fascinating and confusing. Confusing because it sounds nothing like the Althouse I've come to know. From 10 blogs years ago down to....just....one. Even Instapundit is just an occasional look. It's just this blog. So imagining that your real vision was going while you shared so much and made it clear and "seen" is an odd feeling. Odd. I can't square it with your fierce focus on everything you discuss. I'm glad you're doing the surgery.
The whole idea of the pleasure of traveling would dim. What is there, really, to see? Why bother?
This was my mother and brother's take on "sight seeing" travel. They were/are both color blind.
The beauty of a pastel sunset...meh. They couldn't see the pastel colors.
The forests of evergreens and massive tree trunks....green brown color blind.
Autumn leaves....blah.
The subtle greens, blues, blue greens, grays of the ocean....all the same colors (whatever those were to them).
The painted desert....well..you get the idea.
Why bother. It was interesting to them, but really? What is the fuss when you can't see the colors or are viewing shades of grays.
There are none so blind as those who will not get cataract surgery.
I still remember that experience
Same. Spring of my 5th Grade. My mouth was probably open in awe the entire 8-block walk home.
Althouse, your writing is very poetic here. I wish you great success in the choice of eye surgeon and that he or she gives you results that make you go "Wow!" (In a Good way!!!)
I don't think I'm near cataracts. But reading your words, I just kinda wonder. My MIL has dreadful vision and cataracts. She probably waited too long to have the issue addressed.
As it happens, I had cataract surgery on my dominant eye a couple days ago, and I will get my other eye fixed on Monday. Huge difference! But on the week between the two surgeries I have one eye that is a bit farsighted, and one that is very nearsighted, snd that’s sometimed awkward. Also my dominant eye is very sensitive to light. I’ve been told it’s because my eyes were so cloudy that They are not used to normal light. I spent a day wearing sunglasses indoors and I wear really, really dark sunglasses outdoors.
Best of luck. For me it was the difference between looking through a dirty window on a gray day and a squeaky clean window on a sunny day. Brighter, richer colors and sharpness of details I hadn't seen in years. And with a wider field of vision. During the week or so between surgeries I couldn't stop myself from looking at something, anything, with just my good eye and then my bad. Good, bad, good, bad, the difference was striking.
slowly, slowly...
Then all at once. Hope you get what you're looking for.
Oh, the hat — are you going to work for Matt Drudge?
Not to rain on the poignant depth of the post, but I can't wait to develop cataracts (runs in the family) so I can have the surgery. Fed up with glasses, I recently considered Lasik - but was advised that it was better to hold on just a little longer, and just do one surgery later.
Some posts here remind me of an old high school friend that was pretty near sighted. She couldn't afford contact lenses at the time (early 1980's), and often went without her glasses. She explained that she actually preferred to see the world as fuzzy. Perfect vision was too much clarity.
In some ways, I am headed towards a lack of hearing. I have already lost a bit and have 24/7 tinnitus in both ears. I'd hang onto sight but the idea of not having to listen to so so much crap is a bit attractive to me.
Althouse, good luck and best wishes with the cataract surgery. It should be a breeze.
To be helpful, I'll suggest a few posts for after the blind spots are gone:
1. This Obama guy, he's really an asshole, isn't he?
2. Hey you gay people, what the fuck is your problem?
3. Let's take a closer look at those breasts. Wow, they're huge.
4. Damn, Meade. You've really aged.
I developed cataracts at an earlier age than most (probably related to extreme nearsightedness) and it's just ridiculous how long I dealt with it before going for another exam and the surgery. Yes, I found myself acclimating. Not wanting to drive at night. Not being as interested in the telly. Worst of all, needing to read endlessly at my job and having to squint and blink and double-take all day long to see smaller print. Not only are things clear now, but everything is brighter. The cataracts cast a yellowey tone over all light. I had them slightly under-correct one eye and I don't need reading glasses or middle-distance glasses; just glasses to sharpen up my vision to drive or see a movie. Enjoy your new world!
It's a procedure that won't cost you much of anything, and yet is still nicely profitable for your ophthalmologist such that it is still attracting great surgical talent, research, and equipment advances.
I don't think that is true of the lenses that are adjustable. They look complicated to me and require they have loops embedded in the iris which pulls on them like the normal lens. It was going to cost me $7000 an eye and I declined. My reading glasses are 20 bucks.
This was a remarkable post. Good luck.
From Wikipedia: Ancient Greece
Galen of Pergamon (ca. 2nd century CE), a prominent Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher, performed an operation similar to modern cataract surgery. Using a needle-shaped instrument, Galen attempted to remove a cataract-affected lens.[14] His surgical experiments included ligating the arteries of living animals.[15] Although many 20th century historians have claimed that Galen believed the lens to be in the exact center of the eye, Galen actually understood that the crystalline lens is located in the anterior aspect of the human eye.
Beautifully written post, Ann.,
I hope your surgery is a success.
Tank,
I still wear hard contacts (RGP) when I scuba dive. (I have about -8 diopters of myopia.) Never had a problem.
Except one time after a very deep dive in the Caicos, I noticed my vision was blurry. Couldn't figure it out, so I popped the lenses out. Lo and Behold, the contacts themselves were fogged. By outgassing air. My damn contacts were bent
I was fine, and it never happened again (and I dive Nitrox now, anyway).
Nobody I told this story to had ever heard the like - very few people dive with RGP lenses.
My 90-year-old mother in law had her cataracts done a few years ago, and is as active as anything. (She loves to travel, though. Maybe you should reconsider :-)
Seriously, Go for it.
My wife just walked in and said "It's better than non-Hodgkins Lymphoma."
True.
Good luck with that. I'm withdrawing from the world, period.
No surgery for that.
With your insurancee having been at UW, you probably won't pay a penny. And you will have immediate results in less than 1/2 hour. Some time for the drops to clear up, etc. What a glory to be able to see to the horizon and in detail.
Michael K said...
It's a procedure that won't cost you much of anything, and yet is still nicely profitable for your ophthalmologist such that it is still attracting great surgical talent, research, and equipment advances.
I don't think that is true of the lenses that are adjustable. They look complicated to me and require they have loops embedded in the iris which pulls on them like the normal lens. It was going to cost me $7000 an eye and I declined. My reading glasses are 20 bucks.
Doc;
Standard intraocular lens implants should not cost you anything. Am I right about that? Did you have cataracts done? Was that the case? If you haven't had them done, do you understand that to be the case?
Lol, Rabel. Great comic writing, timing, relief.
The thought of eye surgery is always frightening, but my father was very happy with the results when he got his cataracts removed.
I hope your operation is successful and you really enjoy your improved vision. It’s amazing that you’ve taken such beautiful photographs despite having cataracts.
After cataract surgery, I felt like an actor in a detergent commercial. The whites where whiter! The brights were brighter! I also had 20-20 vision with one eye, reading vision with the other. I'm no longer 20-20, so I use glasses for driving. My eyes just want to be near-sighted.
I got my first pair of glasses in first grade. I had no idea people could see the leaves on the trees.
Joanne Jacobs,
Are you the Joanne Jacobs I know? Married to RMR?
If only anosmia/ageusia were so easily resolved.
With Althouse (my senior by three years or so) and the others with glasses since second grade. Three big developments.
The first was soft contact lenses in my late 20s. Most of my sisters did hard lenses, starting when I was maybe 10. Seemed hideous (but they all still have the hard lenses). Within a couple of days, I was wearing them all day long, without the constant office visits and increasing by 10 minutes a day or whatever that my sisters went through.
Even bigger was the extended wear lenses a few years later. For the first time in decades, not flapping around first thing in the morning like Patty Duke in the Miracle Worker trying to find the glasses (I know that's crude and rude, but still descriptive). The extended wears later came into disrepute because of various effects on the wearers, but I remember my optometrist saying that, after many years of use, he wouldn't be able to tell if I had been using them by looking at my eyes.
OK, a digression: a detached retina at age 53 or so! But after some angst, all turned out well.
Then came the cataracts about ten years ago at age 54 or so. Waited about three years, which was at least one year too long, for the surgery. As others have noted, the surgery was a breeze (though I did have a minor recovery issue in one eye).
What a revelation (literally)! Things had not only become dull, but with an awful discolored yellowing. And I couldn't drive at night, which greatly curtailed my trips from Boston to New Hampshire (that part fits directly with the Althouse post). I now have a problem with kerataconus in one eye (normally affects teenage boys!!), but otherwise have the best vision I've had in well over 55 years. Also interesting how my brain has greatly favored the excellent vision in my left eye over the impaired vision in the right (won't go into the story about the result at the DMV when I tried to get the vision restriction taken off my license).
Don't know why, but I wasn't eligible for fixing the short-term vision. So I have unbelievably good uncorrected long-term vision, while needing reading glasses for some short-term stuff.
Am usually a great fugitive from the medical establishment, but what the eye docs can do is absolutely amazing.
--gpm
I adjusted unconsciously to a loss of blood flow due to a bicuspid (congenital) aortic valve malformation. I had replacement surgery 6 weeks ago, and have never been happier or sharper in cognitive ability as compared with the last year--all while the Drs asked if I had any difficulty exercising, etc. Apparently, one can compensate with a good heart (I was a varsity rower in college), but a new world opened once the surgery was completed. As an added bonus, my beloved wife has notice how much happier I am. I can't imagine compromising my eyesight bey decision, so please get this done--your reading and visual world (as evidence by your artistic eye) will be even more restored.
Oh, my gosh! Good luck so much.
Hope you have the surgery soon and come back to the land of the living...
A beautifully written meditation — thank you for making the decision to share it.
I am happy you discovered this, and I hope the surgery is successful and your new vision inspiring.
As we got older we become a consumer of Medical.services. In metro Atlanta that meant Piedmont Hospital and its physician groups for the rich folks. Emory medical school was the teaching Hospital with their interns at Grady doing the latest in burn recovery and urban gunshot cases.but as computer based medicine has developed,Emoryhas really become the best and takeover several Hospitals. That in turn woke up Piedmont to acquire suburban locations. They now compete like Coke And Pepsi. They go head to head on getting monopolies on State Blue Cross plan until patients are turned away in final contract disputes..
I am an Emory man and my Cardiologist is the best one in the SE USA whose group was taken over by Emory. But recently I Went to a 6:00 AM emergency room at Piedmont to discover it was not appendicitis but a big kidney stone. They called in a Piedmony Physician who was great, did Asti t until the infection went down so they could fracture it with a laser. All gets set and at the last day the anesthesiologist demands a clearance from my cardiologist but refuses it without the EKG copies that are in date.
So the intense pain continues while Piedmont one ups Emory. Collateral damage must be expected in wars.
A prayer fur the successful resolution to your problem!
Even if you don't Believe, God still does.
Althouse said: "I don't know if my lack of interest in travel is based on the vision limitation, but it might be."
I don't know if your hatred of men wearing shorts is based on your inability to see how incredible sexy bare male legs are, but it might be.
I started reading the post and thought Oh no! Ann has macular degeneration, like my Mom had! I skipped to the end and was relieved to see it was cataracts. Thank God. I hope we see more of your excellent photography once your vision is restored. Good luck with the surgery.
And when I got my glasses, oh my! I could see the leaves on trees and the rain as it fell to the ground.
This was my experience too. I had never seen all the leaves that made up trees and I could see powerlines between the poles. But my epiphany was not from an exam. I found a pair of glasses on the ground and put them on as a joke, but they actually worked and the trees looked so alive!
I had cataract surgery about 16 months ago and it's amazing. I went for a new prescription because I was having trouble reading road signs. I had no idea I had cataracts. I opted for the multifocal toric lens. My insurance would only pay for the monofocal, so I had to pay quite a bit out of pocket. It's been well worth every penny.
I now have 20/15 distance vision in both eyes. I was told that the close-up vision would not be perfect, but it's better than I expected. I almost opted out of them because one effect is I what I call "target" vision -- concentric circles around lights at night. I don't notice these much anymore, but I found them interesting. So much better than the glaring halos I was seeing.
While I can see my desktop computer screen well enough, I do use reading glasses fairly often. Low contrast pages are a problem, but then they were before too. I keep reading glasses in my purse for dimly lit restaurants to read the menu and the bill.
Like a lot of others, I remember getting my first glasses when I was 7 and the wonder of seeing things like leaves, blades of grass, stars. This experience has been just as wonderful.
I had both lens replaced after a grease splatter on one eye made me realize that I could not see clearly out of it at all. (and the other one was compensating but was not clear too). Starts with you thinking you need new glasses because of the slight blur on signs and computer screens.
Surgery takes a minute - prep is 30-45. You see when they pull the cover off your eye after the new lens goes in. The only downside is that you lose close vision and have to wear reading glasses. But you see perfect for distance.
I don't recommend the "bi focal" version of the lens replacements too - I have only heard of problems with them. Stick with the simple one and just wear glasses to read.
Beautifully written and very touching. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Thanks for the heartfelt post. I worry each year when I have my eye exam. A life spent in the sun, in the desert and the tropics, takes a toll. they say fixing the lenses is like changing oil now, easy and no problems. But, still a scary thing. My eye doc says in a year or two I will have to do it.
I'm sure things will go well for you! and look forward to more blogging and more photos.
Excellent post. Good luck, Ann. I hope it goes well.
- Krumhorn
I was having issues seeing, and was concerned due to the fact that I had to renew my driver's license in January. I went for an eye exam and my doctor indicated that I had cataracts in both eyes and she referred me to a surgeon. Two weeks later, I had the surgery on the worst of the two eyes. I went from not being able to read anything on the eye chart to 20/20 vision in one day. My doctor said, "We really hit that one out of the park. We don't always get results that good". A month later, I had the other eye done, and I can now see without glasses. I do need a pair of readers for small print. My doctor said they have to pick a lens which balances far and near vision. The good news is that I just had my license renewed with no restrictions. I often think about what a great time we live in. If I had this condition 100 years ago, I would be slowly going blind. Good luck to you!
I was nearsighted from birth. Ten years ago I had cataract surgery. It is an amazing transition. It takes time for the brain to not wonder at the beauty of the world. You're loved ones are happy for you, but they do get tired of hearing you say, " I can see that street sign, no glasses!" and so on and on and on.
It also takes time to not put your hand up to take your glasses off as you put down the book and go to sleep. Having eyes that see long distance takes some getting used to.
It is really a miracle.
You sure Meade isn't just gaslighting you?
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