Tuesday 14 August 2012

Looking with New Eyes

What a wonderful transition the last month has brought: new eyes.

I left Urchfont preoccupied, knowing that my first eye "procedure" (a not entirely relaxing euphemism) would take place the following morning.  Dear husband came to drive me home and offer moral support.  The hospital isn't far away, and is brand new thanks to a substantial gift.

I am taken in and processed.  Sitting amongst the elderly, the wheelchair bound, at sixty two I feel misplaced.  We move inexorably towards the operating room, drop by antiseptic and dilating drop, wrist named, now left eyebrow marked and checked yet again before blue-hatted, hand held, I meet the team in the white-lit operating room.

Now ten days later after my second op, a veteran, no cataracts, new lenses, my brain accustomed to this state of play, I am amazed.  I joke I have the eyes of a seventeen year old, since that was the time at which my eyes began to fail.  It is a curious thing though to see myself and others without the barrier of external lenses.  It is exciting to see the world so sharply.  However, and isn't there always an however, small print and threading needles remain a challenge uncorrected by the "procedure" and must wait -- for glasses!