Hawk Eyes

I laid on the gurney, all but my left eye covered. The surgeon and his assistants were chattering away while some not so great rock music played in the background. As instructed I was attempting to follow the lights with my eye but the lights seemed to be jumping all over the place. “Got it!” I heard the surgeon say (with what to me seemed like a sigh of relief) as he slotted my new lens in place. “That was a pretty heavy cataract,” he said. “You’re going to be amazed.” And I was.

The day after cataract surgery on my left eye I peered through my left eye at the tree line surrounding our house. “Holy cow,” I said, “can I ever see good!” The leaves on the Aspen trees were uncannily clear, dancing with the breeze against a deep blue sky. Wow, I hadn’t expected that! I knew cataract surgery would lift the fog from my eyes but was surprised to find  that it also corrected my vision. 

I’m not good at dropping foreign liquids into my eyes, but I faithfully followed my 4 times daily, 3 different types of eye drops routine, a routine that goes on for several weeks before and after surgery. Before I knew it week one was over and I was back at hospital getting my right eye done. But no startling clarity of vision greeted me this time. Instead I gazed through a greyish fog. “No worries,” the post-op doctor said with assurance, “all looks good. It’s likely just a bit of swelling causing the blurred vision.” And he was right. 

As is standard procedure, two weeks after the second eye surgery I went to see my usual eye doctor for a check up. By that point I was somewhat  preoccupied with how my eyes felt. The left eye especially seemed like it had something in it, a sort of heavy feeling in the corner, and my distance vision kept changing. The surgeon told me I could use a good quality eye drop as often as I wanted to, but my regular eye doctor changed instructions for the left eye and told me to continue using one of the prescription eye drops for 3 extra weeks. The drops were uncomfortable, stung. Both eyes felt dry and scratchy, like there were wee cat hairs irritating them. My balance was off. I woke up one morning with left eye tears flowing for over an hour.

It’s weird having your eyes abruptly changed. My old glasses are completely useless. I can see clearly at a distance but need reading glasses to see close up. My iPad screen looks sort of concave (I think the reading glasses cause that). I keep checking the vision of one eye against the other. Was my left eye always larger than the right? Those white dots in the centre, were they always that bright? One evening a friend looked across the table and commented that my eyes looked different, brighter somehow, he said. We joked about alien implants, spy camera installations.

Finally, at seven weeks I went to my optometrist for my final checkup. All is well now, although I do need to use fake tears now and then, and I understand why there is a seven week wait for that checkup. I can now drive without glasses but I ordered new glasses anyhow. They will have nearly clear glass on the top graduating down to reading glasses on the bottom so I can wear them all the time if I want. I most likely will as I’m used to wearing glasses, have worn them for over 50 years, and I never seem to have my reading glasses handy when I need them.

We’re ready for winter, only ripening tomatoes left to process. Thanksgiving has come and gone and, along with so many other blessings, I have hawk eyes to be thankful for. It can’t get much better than that.

North of 54

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October 15, 2024