Six months ago, I had cataract surgery on both eyes, and new lenses put in.
Since then, I’ve had three issues with my eyes.
- Glare. Every bright light source has glare. It isn’t just at night. Driving on a sunny day, the brake lights on the car in front of me will have a large halo and glare.
- Worsening vision. I can’t see as well now as I could six months ago, when I first had the surgery.
- Floaters. I have floaters in my right eye. They continue to multiply. I have more now than I did initially after the surgery.
This week, I went in to the doctor for my six month checkup. The first half of the visit was frightening. They measured my eyes. They have all the data on what they used to be like. I wasn’t imagining it. My eyes are much worse than they used to be. My current glasses prescription is no longer correcting my eyes adequately.
It turns out that I have a build-up of scar tissue behind the new lenses. This happens to between 20-50% of all cataract patients. There’s a procedure to deal with this, called a YAG laser posterior capsulotomy. (Here’s a good article explaining it all: https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/cataracts/what-to-know-about-posterior-capsulotomy-yag-laser)
The eye doctor told me that this procedure should take care of both the worsening vision as well as the glare. As for the floaters, possibly this procedure will disrupt those as well, and they’ll all go away. Or, they might remain exactly as they are. Or, I might have more. So what happens with the floaters is still up in the air, as it were.
Unfortunately, I can’t get into the doctor’s office until March to have the procedure done. And chances are, my eyesight will continue to deteriorate from now until then.
*le sigh*
I’d really wanted my cataract surgery to be a one-and-done deal, ya know? Not the case, though.
I’ve always written on laptops. I’ve finally broken down and ordered a monitor so that I can blow up what I’m working on, make everything bigger. As this progresses, I might end up picking up a pair of cheap readers, just so that I can see the screen and read things up close.
I will continue to work, to write, to do all the things. I will figure out work arounds. Adapt and overcome.
I just wanted to let y’all know that sometimes the cataract surgery doesn’t go as planned.