Crazy Eyes

How's your eyeballs?

"WHY THEY'RE SUPER-DUPER AWESOME!" I say with a high-beam-voltage, night-skiing kind of stupid-ass grin. Cause there's no point telling people what's really going on. I tried that ... a couple of times. Even with my cockamamie eyeballs I could see their expression gloss over like the meringue on a well-made lemon pie. They don't CARE – they're just asking to be polite. No, seriously, they are.

But then I had someone comment on this blog who was genuinely interested in how my cataract operation fared because she had her cataracts removed and wanted to compare notes. So I'm posting this public service announcement for her sake, and for yours too because, unless you die when you're 54, like me, you're eventually going to get old and get cataracts. Because life sucks that way, in case you hadn't noticed.

The scoop on cataract surgery is thus: if you have to have surgery, pick this one. It's bloodless, it's almost entirely pain-free and it makes an immediate and major improvement in your life. Like, if you have your gall bladder removed, it makes no tangible difference in your lifestyle. You aren't thinner when the anesthetic wears off. You don't hear better. Your boobs certainly aren't bigger. All that's different is you're missing some organ that you didn't use in the first place. It's like the appendix – I have no fecking idea what it does. It's just this lumpish liverish thing that has a free ride in your abdominal cavity, sucking on your blood like some weird internal vampire, until one day it decides it's going to piss you off and hurt like the raging buttocks of Hell. Then you get it chopped out and life continues with no difference except a big fecking scar and the end of the bikini as you knew it.

I had my appendix and gall bladder out at the same time. A two for one deal. The doc promised me I would have an itty-bitty scar. When he took off the band-aid aprés surgery I had a fecking scar from boobs to bellybutton.

Cataract surgery isn't like that. Not nowadays. When my parents had theirs done a few years ago the doctor cut into the whites of their eyes and left big nasty stitches. They don't do that now. With teeny tiny knives they cut into the pupil, I think, and then chop up your lens while it's still inside your eyeball. I know, it sounds gross, but you don't feel a thing. You're all hopped up on drugs and all you can see is pretty lights. It's so psychedelic, man. Like you've just done heroin. Or maybe you have done heroin – who knows what they're shooting into your IV when you're not looking?

Once the lens is chopped up like eyeball sushi they suction it out with a teeny tiny vacuum cleaner. I think my doctor used a Hoover Windtunnel. The reason they do it that way is so they don't have to make a big cut in your eyeball. I know, brilliant, right?

When the old one is out, the eye-doc inserts a new lens that is folded up like a teeny-tiny umbrella. (Everything's teeny-tiny in Eyeball Land.) He pops it open using the magic umbrella button and it sproings into place. He doesn't even have to stitch it. It just sticks there. I don't know how – pressure, I guess. Like shower curtain rods. Or maybe Krazy Glue.

And that's it. End of operation. He sticks a clear plastic pirate shield over your eye and sends you home with a month's supply of eye drops and a pleasant leftover drug buzz that makes you sleepy, happy and dopy.

I was worried about it, I was. Because I am a big poulet. But it was no big deal. I arrived at the hospital, filled out some forms and then the nurses came and inserted an IV and drenched my eyeball with a bathtub load of drops. Some of them froze my eyeball (the drops, not the nurses), some of 'em dilated my pupil, some of them were somebody's used bathwater. Then the eye-doc wrote some graffiti on my eye with a magic marker. He was quite precise about it – said he was measuring stuff. I thought, gee, all this high-tech teeny-tiny stuff and he's writing on my eyeball with a magic marker.

A different nurse gave me one of those gobsmack ugly blue hospital hats to wear and still another one put more freezing drops in my eyes. I was worried she didn't give me enough so I grabbed her arm and hissed, "I NEED MORE." So she gave me more. Because she was afraid.

Then they wheeled me into the operating room and the anesthesiologist asked me how high I'd like to be.

"Gimme everything you got," I said.

He gave me a nice dose of IV bubbly and I was feeling like that time when I had too much rye and was laying flat on my back in an open field watching the stars spin, but then they started duct taping my forehead to the bed and propping open my eyeball with some prop-open-THING and that's when I got scared and yelled, "IT'S NOT ENOUGH."

I remember the anesthesiologist and the rest of the surgical team discussing the matter ... "she had the proper dose".... "I don't know if she really needs more or if she's just a big poulet ..." Then that's all I remember, except for the pretty lights. I think they probably gave me more because, when I had a bath the next day there was this electrocardiac sticky-thing on my back next to my ass and I don't remember anybody being that close to my ass. Despite repeated showers and baths the black mark from that sticky-thing remained. I finally had to scrub my skin raw to remove it. Since I'm having the other eyeball done tomorrow morning I didn't want the nurses to see the dirt from the sticky thing still there... they would think I'm a dirty pig.

The lights... I can't tell you enough about the lights. You do not see any of the eye-doc's tools coming toward you. For some reason, you don't see a bloody thing. Just these lights. Have you seen any of the Austin Powers movies? You know how each break in the action is marked by psychedelic backgrounds for Austin's bimbo dance moves? That's what it looks like and it's grooooovy, baby.

For a few hours after the surgery I couldn't see anything at all out of the new eyeball. Gradually my eyesight returned and I was stunned, absolutely stunned, by the clarity of my vision. The colours were off – the first couple of post-op days everything was red, like looking through cranberry glass. The next couple of days things were yellow. Two weeks later and the colours are normal but incredibly VIVID.
When you have cataracts you don't realize how badly you see things. It's like looking through a steamy window and all the colours of everything are pastel versions of themselves. When the old lens is gone the world is a bright and beautiful place.

The morning after my surgery I went outside and started bawling like a baby when the sheer breathtaking beauty of my part of the world hit me upside the head with a resounding slap. Mist was rising off the river, coating nearby trees with a sparkling patina of ice. Everything was so clear, so crystal-fecking-clear that I was dazed. I thought, how can anyone who can see this BEAUTY not want to live in this gorgeous, gorgeous world?

But I digress.

I wanted to tell you how my vision is. Well, here's the scoop: I used to be nearsighted in both eyes. Now I'm not nearsighted in the left. I can see things in the distance with stunning clarity. Only I can't see anything close up. Like my computer screen? Can't fecking see it with the new lens. Will need pop bottle bottom reading glasses to be able to see anything close up. In the meantime I am using Dave's old reading glasses, which are not my prescription but they're better than nothing, right? As for my right eye, for now it's still clouded with a cataract and it's nearsighted but is good with close-up. Dave's glasses make my right eye downright crazy. Like Steve  Buscemi as Crazy-Eyes in Adam Sandler's Mr. Deeds movie.

So, to summarize, I've got nearsighted and farsighted, cataract and non-cataract, all going on at the same time. It's all going to be fine, though. Tomorrow I get the other cataract removed and then in six weeks, when everything's healed up, I'll go to the optometrist and get fitted for new glasses. In the meantime, I'll get some reading glasses from the drug store to get me through the next month or so at work.

Oh, and I've figured out why I had the stupid cataracts so early in my life. I've been taking Solumedrol, a type of steroid, every two months for several years to combat my Crohn's disease. Apparently steroids speed cataract growth. That's the thing about drugs – they help you but they never come without risk. My son asked me today about medication for acne. I told him to wash his face more often before thinking about medication because you never know how it might affect you in the future. Besides, he's only got a few zits. Nothing a bit of soap can't handle.

(C'mere, baby, I'll pop 'em for ya. Nothing Mama likes better than popping a few juicy zits.)

***

Just a quick shout-out to some folks who have been having a rough go of it lately. To Mark and his family, and to Tammy and Richard and theirs, I send all my love, hugs and wishes. You are in my thoughts, my dearest, dearest friends.

Squinty McGuinty

When I'm sitting here blogging? This is how I look.

"Aren't I attractive?" I ask Dave.

"No," sez Dave.

My one eye is SO BAD that I catch myself closing it tight, slamming it shut, anything to look at this damnably blurry computer screen. (You should see how big I've got it blown up. And I can only stand looking at it for a few minutes at a time.) Thirteen more days until my cataract surgery. 13 DAYS! I can hardly WAIT for that doctor to poke a hole in my eyeball with a scalpel, mash the lens around before he yanks it out, and stick the new bendable umbrella-ish lens through the hole. Then he'll stitch it up with a needle and thread. Like stuffing a Christmas goose. The idea of having stitches in my eyes is a little daunting but I am definitely looking forward to seeing again.

It's not that I can't see. I just can't see details. It's like looking through a window that's clouded up. Like, when you've been out at Make-out Hill necking in the back of your boyfriend's Buick and there's a knock on the window and you're not sure if it's a cop or a serial killer because you've steamed up the glass. Here, I found this image on the web that shows you what I mean:

(It's from Lighthouse International.)

Anyway, I'm getting sick and tired of squinting at everything. I was at the hairdresser's today, getting my eyebrows plucked because I sure as hell can't see them (I now wear make-up like 90-year-old ladies wear make-up, with blue shadow over half my face and lipstick smeared up my nose. I know. Disgusting). The hairdressing ladies were teasing me that after the surgery I'll know what Dave REALLY looks like. (God, I hope he's cute. Word to the wise: never marry someone BEFORE cataract surgery.)

I found out tonight, on Facebook, because everything I know about my family I learned on Facebook (pretty soon we won't need family reunions, we'll just set up a FB event and nuke our own hot dogs), that my cousin Karen just found out SHE has cataracts. And she's younger than me! Poor thing, she just had surgery for glaucoma (the eye disease I can never pronounce) and she went in for a post-op check-up and the doc says, "Your glaucoma is gone but keep an eye on those cataracts you got going." Talk about not winning for losing! Hey Karen - I'll loan ya my white cane when I'm done with it! And then we'll go and beat up on our mothers for handing us down the blind gene!

Speaking of mothers, I had lunch with mine today. She paid, which was AWESOME. We went to the hairdresser's. Mom got herself a fancy new do and she looks like a million bucks. Seeing as how I'm usually at work when my Mom is gallivanting, this was a real treat. We had coffee and gossiped and chatted and ate and gossiped and, you know, it was just fabulous! Thanks Mom!

On a different note, I'm pretty stoked about how Letters from a Friend is going. Hope you're liking it, too. I love how every letter is different. I love all your comments. Some of them make me laugh. Some cry. All of 'em make me squint. Oh, didn't you love Jamie Woodman's handcrafted letter? She is SO talented. Me and her and Dave and Donna Brohm had a helluva good time having coffee at her house on Monday. Nothing better than seeing old friends. I got there and announced, truthfully, "You guys haven't changed a bit! You look amazing!" And they were, like, "Says the blind girl." Yeah. Well. I bet they looked fetching. They always did. Likely always will.

I've got lots more letters coming up. Tomorrow I'll be posting a letter from Delores of The Feathered Nest fame. She is one of my most faithful blog readers – I've gotta give her credit for that. Even when I post the worst shite, she is there to cheer me on. Delores is also one of the most prolific bloggers I've come across – she posts like a zillion times every day. OK, so maybe not a zillion, but ALMOST. (Gotta stop writing about her now so I have lots to discuss tomorrow.)

I've got letters from some of my very favourite blogger friends. You won't want to miss them, I swear.

One more thing: we went cross-country skiing on Sunday. There's a spot around the corner from us where you can ski-for-free. It was gorgeous and we had an awesome time. I am NOT a great skier anymore, since I got old and fat and all, but I used to be, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I was feeling brave until I went down the first hill, yelling, "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" all the way.

Next hill, I took off the damned skis and walked.

I may be blind but I'm not stupid.

Remind me to buy Sam some snow pants.

Driving Miss Cathy

Weird, today is. My last morning going to work for almost a month.

It's my eyes, you see. Can't see a bloody thing. Well, I can see you but I can't see the expression on your face. I can't see road signs anymore – they're just a dangerous blur. And I definitely can't see what's on my computer screen, no matter how big I blow it up.

Cataracts. In both eyes. I'm 51, for crissakes. Who gets cataracts when they're 51? Actually my uncle was still in his '40s when he had his done, so it runs in my family and it's not unheard of. Still, my husband's aunt, who is in her '80s, just had hers done.

I figured something was amiss last spring but I didn't suspect cataracts. I just thought my glasses were FUBAR and my prescription had changed. You could have blown me over with a feather when the optometrist said, "You have cataracts in both eyes and they're the fast-growing kind. I want to keep close tabs on them. Come back and see me in six months."

"I'm old," I whined. "It's official."

It was apparent to the optometrist that my cataracts had gotten substantially worse when I went back for the six month check-up. There was none of the debate I expected: "Well, they're bad but you can probably wait for a couple of years." Nope. She said, "Let's get you in to see a surgeon as soon as possible."

That was in September. Now, Canada has an excellent health plan but non-emergency surgery does take time to arrange. First the doc has to find room on his schedule for a consult. Then there are tests and more tests, blah-dee-blah. Finally I got a date for surgery – Feb. 7.

Meanwhile, my eyes are rapidly getting worse. It's a good thing I'm a touch-typist because otherwise I wouldn't know what I was writing. (And thank gawd for spell check and blowing up your screen 200%.) Part of my job is adjusting photographs at work. Usually I'm pretty good at it – my colleagues often give me the worst photos that need the most touch-ups. Funny thing is, I can't see what I'm doing at all. Only a bazillion years of experience tells me I'm in the ballpark.

We got a 50" plasma TV before Christmas (I know, crazy eh?) and I keep asking Dave, "Is it clear?" Because it looks terrible to me. He assures me it's fantastic.

I rely on other people to drive me everywhere.

I can't read labels at the supermarket.

Finally I decided, enough is fecking enough. So I arranged to be off on short-term disability until after my surgery.

I feel kind of icky about it. Guilty. But also vaguely exhilarated. I mean, come on, the last time I had a month off was when I had my babies. This time there's no labour pains and diapers to change.

Anyway, I should go. My ride will show up any minute to drive Miss Daisy to work. She's no Morgan Freeman but I surely do appreciate her kindness.