Cataract

I don’t remember on which date my optician referred me to the Eye Hospital for removal of a cataract in my right eye, but it was about two years ago. I had been on the waiting list since then. The hospital had guaranteed that the operation would be done within twelve weeks of the referral, but they didn’t do it within twelve weeks, and when the twelve weeks had passed they wrote to me apologising for not performing the guarantee, in which case, you naturally ask yourself, what’s the point of a guarantee?

On Monday, 27/02/23, the hospital phoned me and asked me if I could come in at short notice because they’d had a cancellation. That they phoned on the Monday was fortunate: my internet service provider, who shall remain anonymous to protect the guilty, had changed our phone from copper wire landline to voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) with a consequent decrease in reliability: had they phoned the day before, when for several hours the phone was not working, they would not have reached either me or my answering machine. Could I come in at 7:30 tomorrow morning? Yes, I could.

The rest is best told in pictures as best I can.

Firstly, the only disappointment I suffered is that I had been told that since the lens of the human eye is opaque to ultraviolet light and the plastic eye lens that they insert is transparent to ultraviolet light, and since the human retina can see ultraviolet light but does not normally encounter any, I could expect to see the ultraviolet markings whereby bees etc. communicate completely unobserved by human beings. In particular it is said that bees, wasps and other pollinating insects navigate by the ultraviolet coloured markings on plants and flowers and by ultraviolet patterns that we don’t notice but they can see in the sky, rather like the white lines that we see running along the middle of roads. I was, therefore, expecting to see patterns like these. So far, I regret to say, I have not seen a single one.

These markings are painted in ultraviolet dye and cannot be seen if you have a normal, natural eye lens. Unfortunately they cannot be seen with a plastic lens either, but they ought to be.

I had been told by several people who had already undergone cataract surgery that they had excellent eyesight from the moment the surgery was finished. Do not believe those false prophets, but beware thereof. In my case, that was not true at all, and I was quite frightened when, for several hours, my post-operative eye gave me no useful imagery at all. For the first hour or so, I couldn’t tell whether my right eye was open or closed, and I could not see anything out of it. For the three hours after that, my right eye gave me a picture which was askew and which did not merge with the picture from my left eye. I saw something like this.

My eyesight only became normal and useable again the following morning, when I woke up at about 7 am and removed the eye-shield which had been stuck over the eye with sticky tape to protect it from things that go bump in the night. Colours were brighter and distant objects were clear and sharp. I had not seen so well without glasses for about 63 years.

It was, however, more difficult to read than I expected. The problem is that my untreated eye was myopic, and couldn’t see anything distinctly if it was more than about a foot away. My newly repaired eye was presbyopic. It couldn’t focus any nearer than about thirteen inches away.

There was nowhere to hold a book or put the computer where both eyes could focus on it sharply. I had either to lean forward and read the thing with my left eye, or sit up and read it with my right eye. So I need new reading glasses. Before I can be prescribed new reading glasses, two things have to happen. One, the new lens needs a month to settle down and bed in, and Two, my optician has to come back from holiday.