Post-op adaptation

I went into surgery on Thursday with a scratch on my cornea, of which I was unaware until the surgeon mentioned it during surgery. Yep, I was wide awake; the only thing anesthetized was my eye, with an extra shot of an "I don't care" drug for the rest of my body. All I could see was a bright light with 3 black triangles in it, evocative of the radiation symbol.

Nuclear icons created by Kiranshastry - Flaticon

There were no creepy scenes of a knife coming ever closer to my eyeball, the fear of many facing this procedure. I was flat on my back (bent knees--thank you thoughtful nurse who placed a pillow under them!) while the doctor did his assembly-line thing (all cataract surgeries are scheduled for Thursdays), then was in the recovery/supervision area less than 15 minutes later.

That scratch was certainly noticeable for the rest of that day and all of Friday! I could barely keep my eye open, with or without lubricating gel drops (which seemed to make things worse most of the time), due to the stinging. The scratch and its effects were compromising my ability to tell any difference from the surgery, but come Saturday morning all became clear. Holy vision change, Batman!

I had a low-level Rx lens inserted, one that brought my nearly-blind right eye to a point where it could be corrected to 20/20 again with glasses. It had become so poor that the most my glasses could do was correct its vision to 20/40, barely legal for driving. (Lately I'd been referring to my right eye as nothing more than a place holder, it was that useless when it came to seeing anything at a distance.) Now, without glasses, it's slightly better than my left eye!

My brain is having to make some adjustments for the differences in brightness and color between my right and wrong (left) eyes now. I'm walking around doing the cover-one-eye thing for the sheer novelty of seeing things in their real colors again. Here's an example, as best as I can replicate on the 'puter, except imagine another lumen or 10 of brightness in the right picture:

 

It's been a challenge this weekend trying to work out how to do things at various distances, and which/how many glasses to wear (the instructions to take it easy and not bend-and-lift anything heavier than 5 pounds are proving to be no challenge at all to follow). I still need my prescription glasses for just about everything, but looking through the current Rx is making my right eye vision worse now! So I've been carefully trying my hand at trimming fabric scraps (fraught but doable in small time frames), FMQing (ditto), and piecing (easily doable) using just my regular glasses, just readers (2.0 or 2.5 magnification, depending on what pair I grab), or wearing the readers in front of my regular glasses. Different strokes for different projects.

My next surgery is scheduled for the 27th, I hope, if it's covered by Medicare. If not, I'll probably get a new Rx for glasses, live this visually dichotomous life for a year, then take stock of my options next January.