I've decided today to forget about any concerns and take a look at the positives of my laser eye surgery.
1) finally the red rims around my eyes are starting to fade
b) the telescopic eye is great. This morning again I could see the leaves outside my window clearly, right down to the water approximately 70 metres away, where I could also make out the ripples on the surface
c) I was doing some cleaning yesterday and could notice things like a fine strand of my daughter's hair on the tiles, which would have been impossible to see prior to surgery
d) I can read everything... newspapers, texts, the tiniest ingredients labels or instruction labels
e) the much maligned "close-up eye" seems to focussing at a slightly (but only slightly) more useful distance than earlier in the week.
Sunday 15 December 2013
Friday 13 December 2013
Day Three
Last night was actually pretty hard. I have been kicking myself about this monovision thing. The 'distance' eye, I have no real complaints about. But the eye that is supposedly for 'closeup' really got to me last night. This is what my vision looks like through that eye, at a normal computer distance.
So much for seeing stuff clearly closeup! And anything beyond that is even worse. This is what my home, the TV, my kids, the trees, the horizon, the road etc all look like to me now, with my "closeup" eye.
Last night I really had a huge cry when I realised - this is it. This is permanent. The vision in that eye was absolutely fine, if a little soft around the edges, just three days ago. Now, unless I am looking at something closer than 30cm from my face (which I never do), I'm all but blind on that side. It was a pretty devastating thought and I cried buckets.
Whatever happens from here, I just have to get used to it. I made a choice based on the information I had, but I'm still angry (mostly at myself) that I can have an eye so much worse than it was before I began this journey. I have been stripped of at least 90% of my vision. Why would they do that?
Having said that, using the two eyes together, it was OK this morning. When I first woke up, i could actually see the leaves on the trees outside my window, and I could see my husband reasonably sharply as he wandered about by the water's edge 100 metres away. (We are lucky enough to live by the water, and he'd gone down for a swim.) The clarity however quickly diminished as the morning wore on. Still, it happened, and it will probably stay clear for a bit longer tomorrow, which is a very heartening thought. It's early days, my eyes will get tired and blurry and I know that. I'm glad the clear moment happened though. I'm going to hold on to that thought.
I went shopping this afternoon at the supermarket. I thought it would be a fairly pristine visual environment, with controlled lighting and not much shadow, but it was actually much blurrier than being out and about in the sun, the wind and the trees. I've decided my new eyes don't like fluro lighting.
So much for seeing stuff clearly closeup! And anything beyond that is even worse. This is what my home, the TV, my kids, the trees, the horizon, the road etc all look like to me now, with my "closeup" eye.
Last night I really had a huge cry when I realised - this is it. This is permanent. The vision in that eye was absolutely fine, if a little soft around the edges, just three days ago. Now, unless I am looking at something closer than 30cm from my face (which I never do), I'm all but blind on that side. It was a pretty devastating thought and I cried buckets.
Whatever happens from here, I just have to get used to it. I made a choice based on the information I had, but I'm still angry (mostly at myself) that I can have an eye so much worse than it was before I began this journey. I have been stripped of at least 90% of my vision. Why would they do that?
Having said that, using the two eyes together, it was OK this morning. When I first woke up, i could actually see the leaves on the trees outside my window, and I could see my husband reasonably sharply as he wandered about by the water's edge 100 metres away. (We are lucky enough to live by the water, and he'd gone down for a swim.) The clarity however quickly diminished as the morning wore on. Still, it happened, and it will probably stay clear for a bit longer tomorrow, which is a very heartening thought. It's early days, my eyes will get tired and blurry and I know that. I'm glad the clear moment happened though. I'm going to hold on to that thought.
I went shopping this afternoon at the supermarket. I thought it would be a fairly pristine visual environment, with controlled lighting and not much shadow, but it was actually much blurrier than being out and about in the sun, the wind and the trees. I've decided my new eyes don't like fluro lighting.
Thursday 12 December 2013
Day Two, and feeling blue :(
I woke up this morning with high hopes. I could see the digital clock, which has never happened before, but that's been the best of it. I looked in the mirror and my eyes look bleary and bloodshot, with dark circles.
Nothing at all is clear, not in the distance and certainly not with my "closeup" eye. That one is absolutely, completely useless.
I naively thought that when one eye was focussed to be good for near-vision, it would still be the same as it had been previously for distance, but just clearer closeup. Previously I would have described it as 80-90% ok for distance viewing. Now, ALL that vision is lost. It's a mess. For anything further away than 30cm from my face, it's like trying to look underwater.
I had to drop the car down to the garage for a service this morning, and I took a 30 minute walk home in the sunshine. When I had the monovision contact lenses in, I had such enjoyment of the world around me. I couldn't wait to have the surgery and enjoy the same level of crispness and detail.
At the moment, this is nothing like that. Everything is fuzzy. The distance eye is certainly poorer than it was before, though weirdly, it is focussing just fine closeup! That's the eye that is enabling me to read things I couldn't read before.
Meanwhile the closeup eye, as we've discussed, is just rubbish for anything except threading a needle... and I don't sew.
I am starting to feel like I've made a big mistake. I am already starting to research "lasik revision surgery" but the thing that is making me feel sick are the words I read in the consent form. "Laser eye surgery is irreversible."
Why would they have recommended monovision for me? Why render one eye useless?
I still need to stay positive and look to the 4-week, 8-week and 12-week marks. Healing takes time. It must be normal to have these doubts and fears... right?
Nothing at all is clear, not in the distance and certainly not with my "closeup" eye. That one is absolutely, completely useless.
I naively thought that when one eye was focussed to be good for near-vision, it would still be the same as it had been previously for distance, but just clearer closeup. Previously I would have described it as 80-90% ok for distance viewing. Now, ALL that vision is lost. It's a mess. For anything further away than 30cm from my face, it's like trying to look underwater.
I had to drop the car down to the garage for a service this morning, and I took a 30 minute walk home in the sunshine. When I had the monovision contact lenses in, I had such enjoyment of the world around me. I couldn't wait to have the surgery and enjoy the same level of crispness and detail.
At the moment, this is nothing like that. Everything is fuzzy. The distance eye is certainly poorer than it was before, though weirdly, it is focussing just fine closeup! That's the eye that is enabling me to read things I couldn't read before.
Meanwhile the closeup eye, as we've discussed, is just rubbish for anything except threading a needle... and I don't sew.
I am starting to feel like I've made a big mistake. I am already starting to research "lasik revision surgery" but the thing that is making me feel sick are the words I read in the consent form. "Laser eye surgery is irreversible."
Why would they have recommended monovision for me? Why render one eye useless?
I still need to stay positive and look to the 4-week, 8-week and 12-week marks. Healing takes time. It must be normal to have these doubts and fears... right?
Eye Surgery!
Yesterday I took the plunge.
Background
I turn 46 this month. About four years ago I started to wear glasses. It didn't bother me. I could still read the newspaper without them but it was more of an effort than it used to be. Ingredients labels were another matter. Eventually I'd realised that I probably wasn't recognising individual letters, just the shapes of whole words in my non-glasses reading. I was about 41 or 42 when I got glasses and things quickly deteriorated. I couldn't read emails, or see the screen on my phone, or even read the buttons in the lift (or 'elevator' depending on where you're from) without specs on. I work in the film industry and found I couldn't adjust the view setting on my camera enough to know whether something was or wasn't in focus. I got big marks on top of my nose from wearing glasses all the time and so about three or four weeks ago, I decided it was time to see whether I might be a contender for laser surgery.
The consultation
I had a two hour assessment at our closest laser eye clinic, in the NSW city of Newcastle. My problem is that I'm reasonably long-sighted (can't read stuff up close) and a little short sighted too (distance is slightly fuzzy but not too bad.) The doc explained the dilemma to me. If they were to focus my eyes one way or the other via laser, then everything would either be focussed up close for reading (with everything beyond it soft and fuzzy), or if they focussed for the background, everything up close would be a mess.
Then they suggested something called "monovision", which I had never heard of and frankly, thought was the most ridiculous thing I'd heard. The suggestion was that they focus one eye for up-close work, and one for distance. Pffffzzzt.
So here are the thoughts that were going around my head:
1. My current prescription glasses are for close-up stuff only and I know that whenever I forget I'm wearing them, and try and walk around or drive with them on, the result has been a weird sea-sick feeling.
2, The thought of having two eyes focussed completely differently - to my mind - could only mean sea-sickness on two fronts.
I was about to shake the doc's hand and agree to part ways, wiser for the experience, when he suggested I trial the effect using contact lenses which would mimic the results of the surgery. I've never worn contacts before so that was an intriguing thought. I made an appointment to return in a few days time, when they would pop the long-stay lenses in for me, and then I could walk around with them, sleep with them, drive with them etc for four days straight.
Grey Matter
Well... the brain is a mysterious and very cool object. As soon as the contacts went in, the grey-matter did a double-take and then seemed to say - "AAAAH. Ok. Gotcha. So this is what we're doing now," and it just pulled together the long and the short, into what was basically a neat little bundle. I LOVED it. Didn't want to let them go. I could read signs at a distance, newspapers, ingredients labels and even the tiny text on the bottle of free eye drops they gave me. What's that... maybe a 2 point font?
So it was with great excitement that I booked in to have my laser eye surgery yesterday, on a 11-12-13, a date that is meant to be very lucky... unless you live in the USA and it's written 12-11-13, which just means "15 days till Christmas".
I live an hour away from Newcastle. We decided I'd go in on the day, have the surgery, stay overnight with my friend Kate who - very happily - is licensee of a Newcastle pub, and then revisit the doc the following day for a check up before coming home again.
Transport and Valium
I found out quite late that there were no guarantees I would be able to drive next day, so in the end I jumped on a bus. It was a bit surreal, riding on a bus for a couple of hours by myself to go another city to have surgery, and even more surreal to be at the other end where I received a warm greeting from the nurses, and a valium as a pre-med. I haven't had valium before and wondered how much of a zombie it would turn me in to. The nurse told me it would be just like a great big full glass of really good Red. Well, heck. If I'd known that, I'd have had one of those instead of the coffee across the road while I was killing time!
It never felt like the valium even kicked in but perhaps it did, because I was fairly calm a few minutes later when I was led through for anaesthetic eye drops, and some Betadine drops too... the same pukey red colour as the Betadine we know, but apparently formulated especially for eyes. I had to scrub off all makeup, especially the mascara. As they reminded me, there would be a flap cut into my eye, and if a little crumb of mascara got under there....
The first visit was to the cutting room. The suction sensation was a bit weird but overall I was never really even sure at what point they had actually cut the eyes, in order to create the flap. In any case, a few minutes later they were saying I'd done great, and were leading me through to the next room. One of the nurses, bless her, held my hand and stroked it and I can't tell you how nice that was and how much less tense it made the experience. One eye was blacked out with a pirate patch and the other had been lasered before I even realised. I had heard a slight noise for a moment, and - yes - the dreaded burning smell (I can't tell you how freaked out I'd been at the anticipation of smelling my own eyes bubbling) - but just when I thought they were still getting the laser lined up, they told me the first eye was done. It really, truly wasn't intimidating or painful... the fear of the unknown was the worst bit.
Then we swapped eyes and it was over just as quickly. Both eye procedures were followed by some business that you kinds do, but kinda don't see... fingers moving closer... the vague awareness that something (presumably my eyeflap) was being painted back into position etc.
I said the procedure was painless but I am lying. When the surgical tape got ripped off my face, I thought my freshly scrubbed cheeks had gone with it. My eyes had been taped open and little guard things put in place. When they came off, it was the old bandaids from the 70s all over again.
Then some clear pirate patches, with air holes, were taped over both eyes so that I couldn't be a naughty girl and poke around in there.
I was led into recovery for a few minutes and given a juice and a chocolate bikky, then was presented with a fun-pack of various antibiotic eye drops, false tears eyedrops, anaesthetic eye drops for if things got really bad, and a bunch of various pain killers.
Waiting for the taxi was funny. The glare from the road and the sunshine was significant. I had these funny clear things on my eyes and had tried to perch my sunglasses over the top. I really couldn't see much through the haze... or "Vaseline Vision", as I'd been told to expect. The clearest thing I saw was a little boy walk past with his mum then he turned back and stared at me while he was pulled backwards.
Cab came, I got to my friend's pub and an hour or two later Kate was free and able to join me for a beer and a chat about how it had all gone. I was vaguely aware that I probably shouldn't have been having a beer after having valium, but hey... it's just a big full glass of good Red, remember?
Within an hour or so, I began to get frustrated with the clear plastic eye patches. The curve on them distorted all my vision and I was finding myself trying to peer through the teeny air holes to see clearly. Eventually I decided to just take them off until bedtime, substituting with sunnies so that I didn't absentmindedly scratch an itchy eye and... well you know... remove the flap that had just been lowered back into place.
Did I mention how much I'd yelped when they took the original tape off my face after surgery? Can I tell you how much worse it was second time around, when the new lot had had a few hours to cure? It didn't help when Kate thought my screams were the funniest thing she'd seen in years.
Eye patches off and my vision was surprisingly not too bad. I had decided not to have any expectations at all before the first three days. I'd heard from reliable sources (Ok, the lady in the chair beside me at the hairdresser, whose husband had laser surgery) that things are pretty good from Day 3. So that was how I set my benchmark. I really expected Vaseline Vision to continue but it was genuinely pretty good. I snuck a look in the mirror and - oh my!!
RED RINGS!! I am kicking myself that I forgot to ask the doctor at the followup whether this was from the suction caps, or the incision.
Sunnies on and Kate and I went out for dinner to a little Greek place in Hamilton. There was no pain but by now the eyeball anaesthetic had worn off and things felt a little bit gritty and stingy. I could read the menu without glasses... that was an exciting moment for sure. Again, I wasn't expecting to be able to see a thing, let alone do any reading, in the first hours after surgery. The font size on the menu was quite big though, so I decided to be just quietly optimistic.
I had an early night. Before bed I dutifully added my two lots of antiobiotic eye drops, and retaped up my clear pirate patch. Twice during the night I woke up, aware that I was itching at my eyes so thank god for the patches, or I might have been dislodged some bits that I really would have preferred to stay put.
In the morning I had to rip half my face off again to get the tape from the pirate patches off. Fortunately this time Kate was already at work so she wasn't there to bust stitches, laughing at me. An hour later I was putting on makeup (but no eye makeup! That's forbidden for the next week!), excited that I could see myself in the mirror clearly, and dismayed that I literally had big red angry strip marks in four places across my face. I swear that bloody surgical tape hates me.
I used extra makeup to cover the red welts, and wandered downstairs to the pub for some scrambled eggs and guess what. I read the morning papers - two of them - in the dim light without glasses. To say I was excited wouldn't even come close. It's been about three years since I could read a paper without specs, and then it would have had to be in good light.
I had my checkup at lunchtime today and the doc squeezed some fluro drops into my eyes, checked me out and was very firm about me using the fake tear stuff, as my eyes were very dry.
Long story short.... I got home really pleased but my happiness began to turn to doubt during the afternoon. As I checked out each eye individually by closing the other, I found that the right eye (focussed for distance) was pretty good all round, but the left eye, focussed for reading, was focussed REALLY close.
If I put my hand right up within a few inches, I can see every little pore in my skin. But if I move it out 30cm it all goes out of focus. That really made my insides plummet. I don't do ANYTHING that close to my face. Books are further away, the computer screen is further away.
I had to drive my daughter to an appointment at 6pm and that was a very intimidating experience. Again, I did the eye-closing thing with the "closeup eye" and I could see my hands very sharply on the steering wheel, but that really doesn't help me on the road. I really started to wonder if I had just completely buggared up the vision in one eye for absolutely no reason.
Tonight I was watching TV and nothing seemed clear at all, even with the good eye. Then our dog started going crackers outside on the deck. A little koala was climbing the tree just outside, a few metres away, and so I went out to watch it and was dismayed that I couldn't see the little clearly at all, either through the left eye, the right eye, or both.
I know all this is normal. I know there will be fluctuations. I know vision will improve slowly. I know that night vision will be rubbish for a long time. I know there will be halos and ghosting, and I know that, at the end of the day, I now DO have one eye close and one eye far.
I need to keep reminding myself that this is Day 1. I was expecting to see nothing at all for the first three days so today has really been a bonus. And I know that realistically, it will take a month for things to really begin to settle down. My surgery needs to heal, my eyes need to recover, my brain needs to find a way for the eyes to talk to each other and everything I read tells me that it gets a little better every day.
Something I have realised is that no matter how frustrated we get when we can't see closeup, that's only one gazillionth of the overall picture. 99% of what we see is NOT closeup. Let's see what the next few days brings.
Background
I turn 46 this month. About four years ago I started to wear glasses. It didn't bother me. I could still read the newspaper without them but it was more of an effort than it used to be. Ingredients labels were another matter. Eventually I'd realised that I probably wasn't recognising individual letters, just the shapes of whole words in my non-glasses reading. I was about 41 or 42 when I got glasses and things quickly deteriorated. I couldn't read emails, or see the screen on my phone, or even read the buttons in the lift (or 'elevator' depending on where you're from) without specs on. I work in the film industry and found I couldn't adjust the view setting on my camera enough to know whether something was or wasn't in focus. I got big marks on top of my nose from wearing glasses all the time and so about three or four weeks ago, I decided it was time to see whether I might be a contender for laser surgery.
The consultation
I had a two hour assessment at our closest laser eye clinic, in the NSW city of Newcastle. My problem is that I'm reasonably long-sighted (can't read stuff up close) and a little short sighted too (distance is slightly fuzzy but not too bad.) The doc explained the dilemma to me. If they were to focus my eyes one way or the other via laser, then everything would either be focussed up close for reading (with everything beyond it soft and fuzzy), or if they focussed for the background, everything up close would be a mess.
Then they suggested something called "monovision", which I had never heard of and frankly, thought was the most ridiculous thing I'd heard. The suggestion was that they focus one eye for up-close work, and one for distance. Pffffzzzt.
So here are the thoughts that were going around my head:
1. My current prescription glasses are for close-up stuff only and I know that whenever I forget I'm wearing them, and try and walk around or drive with them on, the result has been a weird sea-sick feeling.
2, The thought of having two eyes focussed completely differently - to my mind - could only mean sea-sickness on two fronts.
I was about to shake the doc's hand and agree to part ways, wiser for the experience, when he suggested I trial the effect using contact lenses which would mimic the results of the surgery. I've never worn contacts before so that was an intriguing thought. I made an appointment to return in a few days time, when they would pop the long-stay lenses in for me, and then I could walk around with them, sleep with them, drive with them etc for four days straight.
Grey Matter
Well... the brain is a mysterious and very cool object. As soon as the contacts went in, the grey-matter did a double-take and then seemed to say - "AAAAH. Ok. Gotcha. So this is what we're doing now," and it just pulled together the long and the short, into what was basically a neat little bundle. I LOVED it. Didn't want to let them go. I could read signs at a distance, newspapers, ingredients labels and even the tiny text on the bottle of free eye drops they gave me. What's that... maybe a 2 point font?
So it was with great excitement that I booked in to have my laser eye surgery yesterday, on a 11-12-13, a date that is meant to be very lucky... unless you live in the USA and it's written 12-11-13, which just means "15 days till Christmas".
I live an hour away from Newcastle. We decided I'd go in on the day, have the surgery, stay overnight with my friend Kate who - very happily - is licensee of a Newcastle pub, and then revisit the doc the following day for a check up before coming home again.
Transport and Valium
I found out quite late that there were no guarantees I would be able to drive next day, so in the end I jumped on a bus. It was a bit surreal, riding on a bus for a couple of hours by myself to go another city to have surgery, and even more surreal to be at the other end where I received a warm greeting from the nurses, and a valium as a pre-med. I haven't had valium before and wondered how much of a zombie it would turn me in to. The nurse told me it would be just like a great big full glass of really good Red. Well, heck. If I'd known that, I'd have had one of those instead of the coffee across the road while I was killing time!
It never felt like the valium even kicked in but perhaps it did, because I was fairly calm a few minutes later when I was led through for anaesthetic eye drops, and some Betadine drops too... the same pukey red colour as the Betadine we know, but apparently formulated especially for eyes. I had to scrub off all makeup, especially the mascara. As they reminded me, there would be a flap cut into my eye, and if a little crumb of mascara got under there....
The first visit was to the cutting room. The suction sensation was a bit weird but overall I was never really even sure at what point they had actually cut the eyes, in order to create the flap. In any case, a few minutes later they were saying I'd done great, and were leading me through to the next room. One of the nurses, bless her, held my hand and stroked it and I can't tell you how nice that was and how much less tense it made the experience. One eye was blacked out with a pirate patch and the other had been lasered before I even realised. I had heard a slight noise for a moment, and - yes - the dreaded burning smell (I can't tell you how freaked out I'd been at the anticipation of smelling my own eyes bubbling) - but just when I thought they were still getting the laser lined up, they told me the first eye was done. It really, truly wasn't intimidating or painful... the fear of the unknown was the worst bit.
Then we swapped eyes and it was over just as quickly. Both eye procedures were followed by some business that you kinds do, but kinda don't see... fingers moving closer... the vague awareness that something (presumably my eyeflap) was being painted back into position etc.
I said the procedure was painless but I am lying. When the surgical tape got ripped off my face, I thought my freshly scrubbed cheeks had gone with it. My eyes had been taped open and little guard things put in place. When they came off, it was the old bandaids from the 70s all over again.
Then some clear pirate patches, with air holes, were taped over both eyes so that I couldn't be a naughty girl and poke around in there.
I was led into recovery for a few minutes and given a juice and a chocolate bikky, then was presented with a fun-pack of various antibiotic eye drops, false tears eyedrops, anaesthetic eye drops for if things got really bad, and a bunch of various pain killers.
Waiting for the taxi was funny. The glare from the road and the sunshine was significant. I had these funny clear things on my eyes and had tried to perch my sunglasses over the top. I really couldn't see much through the haze... or "Vaseline Vision", as I'd been told to expect. The clearest thing I saw was a little boy walk past with his mum then he turned back and stared at me while he was pulled backwards.
Cab came, I got to my friend's pub and an hour or two later Kate was free and able to join me for a beer and a chat about how it had all gone. I was vaguely aware that I probably shouldn't have been having a beer after having valium, but hey... it's just a big full glass of good Red, remember?
Within an hour or so, I began to get frustrated with the clear plastic eye patches. The curve on them distorted all my vision and I was finding myself trying to peer through the teeny air holes to see clearly. Eventually I decided to just take them off until bedtime, substituting with sunnies so that I didn't absentmindedly scratch an itchy eye and... well you know... remove the flap that had just been lowered back into place.
Did I mention how much I'd yelped when they took the original tape off my face after surgery? Can I tell you how much worse it was second time around, when the new lot had had a few hours to cure? It didn't help when Kate thought my screams were the funniest thing she'd seen in years.
Eye patches off and my vision was surprisingly not too bad. I had decided not to have any expectations at all before the first three days. I'd heard from reliable sources (Ok, the lady in the chair beside me at the hairdresser, whose husband had laser surgery) that things are pretty good from Day 3. So that was how I set my benchmark. I really expected Vaseline Vision to continue but it was genuinely pretty good. I snuck a look in the mirror and - oh my!!
RED RINGS!! I am kicking myself that I forgot to ask the doctor at the followup whether this was from the suction caps, or the incision.
Sunnies on and Kate and I went out for dinner to a little Greek place in Hamilton. There was no pain but by now the eyeball anaesthetic had worn off and things felt a little bit gritty and stingy. I could read the menu without glasses... that was an exciting moment for sure. Again, I wasn't expecting to be able to see a thing, let alone do any reading, in the first hours after surgery. The font size on the menu was quite big though, so I decided to be just quietly optimistic.
I had an early night. Before bed I dutifully added my two lots of antiobiotic eye drops, and retaped up my clear pirate patch. Twice during the night I woke up, aware that I was itching at my eyes so thank god for the patches, or I might have been dislodged some bits that I really would have preferred to stay put.
In the morning I had to rip half my face off again to get the tape from the pirate patches off. Fortunately this time Kate was already at work so she wasn't there to bust stitches, laughing at me. An hour later I was putting on makeup (but no eye makeup! That's forbidden for the next week!), excited that I could see myself in the mirror clearly, and dismayed that I literally had big red angry strip marks in four places across my face. I swear that bloody surgical tape hates me.
I used extra makeup to cover the red welts, and wandered downstairs to the pub for some scrambled eggs and guess what. I read the morning papers - two of them - in the dim light without glasses. To say I was excited wouldn't even come close. It's been about three years since I could read a paper without specs, and then it would have had to be in good light.
I had my checkup at lunchtime today and the doc squeezed some fluro drops into my eyes, checked me out and was very firm about me using the fake tear stuff, as my eyes were very dry.
Long story short.... I got home really pleased but my happiness began to turn to doubt during the afternoon. As I checked out each eye individually by closing the other, I found that the right eye (focussed for distance) was pretty good all round, but the left eye, focussed for reading, was focussed REALLY close.
If I put my hand right up within a few inches, I can see every little pore in my skin. But if I move it out 30cm it all goes out of focus. That really made my insides plummet. I don't do ANYTHING that close to my face. Books are further away, the computer screen is further away.
I had to drive my daughter to an appointment at 6pm and that was a very intimidating experience. Again, I did the eye-closing thing with the "closeup eye" and I could see my hands very sharply on the steering wheel, but that really doesn't help me on the road. I really started to wonder if I had just completely buggared up the vision in one eye for absolutely no reason.
Tonight I was watching TV and nothing seemed clear at all, even with the good eye. Then our dog started going crackers outside on the deck. A little koala was climbing the tree just outside, a few metres away, and so I went out to watch it and was dismayed that I couldn't see the little clearly at all, either through the left eye, the right eye, or both.
I know all this is normal. I know there will be fluctuations. I know vision will improve slowly. I know that night vision will be rubbish for a long time. I know there will be halos and ghosting, and I know that, at the end of the day, I now DO have one eye close and one eye far.
I need to keep reminding myself that this is Day 1. I was expecting to see nothing at all for the first three days so today has really been a bonus. And I know that realistically, it will take a month for things to really begin to settle down. My surgery needs to heal, my eyes need to recover, my brain needs to find a way for the eyes to talk to each other and everything I read tells me that it gets a little better every day.
Something I have realised is that no matter how frustrated we get when we can't see closeup, that's only one gazillionth of the overall picture. 99% of what we see is NOT closeup. Let's see what the next few days brings.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)