The story of my left eye – so far: Part V
[Part I can be found here.
Part II can be found here.
Part III can be found here.
Part IV can be found here.]
I can’t remember much about the drive home from the surgery, except that I was tired and some combination of relieved and apprehensive. My eyesight hadn’t cleared from the surgery yet, but this was expected. I’d read – both in the handouts the surgeon had given me and also in material from other doctors – that by the next morning I might expect a great improvement.
But the next morning when I woke up what I saw was a thick fog, much worse than the day before and certainly worse than my cataract had been. Panicked, I phoned the doctor (he had a policy of allowing texts and phone calls and returning them in a very timely fashion). He called back quite quickly, and I explained that what I saw was a pea-soup fog.
“It’s normal,” he said, “especially because I had to do much more work on your eye than usual. It will clear.” And clear it did, that afternoon. Fortunately, I also had a follow-up appointment with him that afternoon, and as we drove (my ex-husband drove; I was a passenger) through the freeways of southern California, I experienced something remarkable.
I know that people whose sight has been compromised by cataracts often ooo and ahhh afterwards at how clear things are and how bright the colors. But I think that my sight had been poor for longer than most; I’m not even sure how many years but at least eight, and I don’t even really remember what it was like to see clearly. Eyeglasses really had not corrected it to any extent at all, and although I could still see colors pretty well (or maybe my brain and imagination filled them in, so I didn’t perceive much deficit there) I lived in a blurry world where all sharp edges were smoothed and almost nothing had detail. I knew trees had leaves, but until I got up close they were like impressionist paintings with blobs of color rather than separate leaves. Same with the petals of flowers: just blobs. The hills in the distance likewise – blurry, and the trees on them were mere suggestions of trees.
And street and traffic signs? Blobs again. I had stopped driving at night and stopped driving distances of more than a mile or two in familiar territory, because street signs were also a blur unless I was right on top of them – sometimes they even remained so when I was on top of them. I either knew the way or I relied on my GPS to tell me where to turn. I could see the street and the other cars, so I wasn’t really endangering anyone, but I was very much in danger of getting lost without my GPS and I certainly wasn’t driving at night, when the glare became a psychedelic light show that was interesting but so distracting that driving was not recommended at all.
And the supermarket, with its enormously bright fluorescent lights, was a booming buzzing confusion of blur. The signs in the aisles were little help unless I was a few feet from them, the labels were hard to read too, but I knew my way around my familiar supermarkets and had gotten used to the whole thing.
But this ride a day after surgery made my jaw drop. The hills of southern California were alive with – not the sound of music – but the sight of grasses and trees and bushes sharply etched. Even the dirt was sharply etched. And the branches of trees (not all the trees had leaves yet) were black.
A word about the color black. Things had gotten gray for me rather than black. The print in books was gray, which made it harder to read even with my reading glasses. The computer likewise. Years ago I thought my font color had changed and went to “settings” to try to change it back to black, and was surprised to see that it already was on black. Street signs and signs in the market looked gray as well, even though I couldn’t read them well.
I had forgotten what black looked like, especially in small sharp things like branches and letters. But here it was – so intense and so clearly defined it stunned me. The same with the signs. I kept exclaiming about the signs, “I can read them! I can read them!”
I realized also that I hadn’t allowed myself to really deeply imagine what it would be like to see more clearly again; I had had so much negativity fed to me by the doctor in Boston that I had lost track of that.
But even more importantly, this was different than I might have imagined. I did not remember seeing this way, even in childhood, and I had had very good vision most of my life. As a child I know it was 20/20, and for many years as an adult it was no worse than 20/30. But what I remembered from then was different than this. It was never as sharp, and the light now was overpowering, so bright that I really felt the need for the sunglasses I was wearing.
My theory now is that an artificial lens really does make a person see differently than a natural lens, even the healthy natural lens of a young person. Maybe most people don’t perceive the difference, but I do (at least, I think I do).
My appointment was reassuring. The doctor said everything looked good. He explained once again how he’d had to free my eye of the extra membrane and the adhesions, and he told me that one little bit had remained and he’d had to snip that part of the iris, and also that he’d had to “reconstruct” my pupil. That gave me pause, but he added that my pupil now looked great, and showed me my “before” and “after” photos.
Quite something.
So now my task was to take my eye drops, and heal.
[To be continued – more to the story, of course…]
I got glasses on third grade. Riding home from the optometrist was a trip. I still remember the trees. I saw the blackboard well enough in school that I don’t have issues. But trees in the distance had kind of been green blobs. I still remember that drive home.
I am so glad everything has worked out for you.
Wow, I really do enjoy happy endings stories and yours is most excellent. What a blessing to recover your eyesight to the degree you have now.
So glad things are working out well. I was worried for you. It’s really amazing how many things can go awry with eyeballs.
Neo, go take in a baseball game– in a real stadium, now that “we the fans” have been freed from lockdown. With your new eye, you’ll find it’s a “whole new ballgame” in the best possible sense.
I am happy for you. I remember a long time ago, I had LASIC surgery. At the time I recall felling and expressing to people that it felt like a re-birth.
Savor it…
When I had my cataract surgery I had so many different eye drops to administer that they had to give a schedule to keep track of all of them. Otherwise I would never have remembered. I had to put those drops in my eyes for about a month.
What a miracle! So very glad you found the right surgeon!
I’m awaiting cataract surgery this summer – as soon as Medicare kicks in. Neo, you’re giving me something to hope for and look forward to! I, too, have noticed the “graying” of everything, including my mood. Discovering your blog (and The Bee Gees) has been a bright spot. So happy things are going your way!
Mind the drops …. 🙂
So happy to hear of your positive outcome!
The change after surgery is amazing, isn’t it? I hope your second surgery is much less traumatic.
Bit surprised they let you drive away, had metal in eye and drops to dilate at doctors office but didn’t get it so in a snowstorm and after dark had to drive 5 miles with sunglasses on, quite scary it was.
@ Neo: given what you discovered about your sight problems, how did you manage to make all those phenomenally good photographs you have shared with us over the years?
I remember being at a football game sometime in elementary school, mostly to watch the marching band as none of my family or close friends played the game, just before my parents took me to get my first pair of glasses. I must have made some comments about not being able to follow the play or read the scoreboard. My near-sightedness had not affected my school-work at all, as I could read easily and may not have had a problem with the blackboard (or just guessed very very well what the teacher wanted).
I wore glasses for the next 50+ years, until getting my cataracts removed about 10 years ago. I don’t remember any change in color values or grayness, but street and business signs were indeed much sharper; they aren’t as good now, but I’m in the risk category for macular degeneration and am watching for symptoms to appear. Apparently, that’s a “when” not an “if” —
I wear sunglasses anytime I’m outside in bright light and always when driving, and I don’t go anywhere unfamiliar at night, as with Neo in the “before.”
It took me a couple of years before I stopped reaching for my glasses every morning.
Your saga is of particular interest to me as I have been on a somewhat similar path. In 2010, I had an accident which exposed my face to a highly alkaline chemical (PH 13, on a scale that goes to 14). I was stabilized at a local hospital then transported to Mass General in Boston to their burn unit. My eyes had been exposed to the chemical and were white, my facial skin mostly black, a serious burn.
Mass Eye and Ear is connected (physically) to Mass General, so an eye doctor came to assess me in the ICU. Fortunately for me, the attending was out of the country on a teaching tour and a fellow studying to get his attending designation was the doctor who came, fortunate because he was an Air Force doctor who had been in Arlington, TX, where injured military from Iraq or Afghanistan were treated. He had seen burn victims there and immediately felt a treatment used in those cases would benefit me, a treatment not familiar to Mass Eye and Ear so a special order. That treatment cleared my eyes of the chemical-related whiteness, and he thought I was in the clear.
Unfortunately, the skin burns (for which I had 13 surgeries) are notoriously difficult for the body to deal with, and often lead to autoimmune troubles. That was the case for me, and after two weeks, my corneas “melted”- a hole developing which exposes the inner eye. This was treated by scraping the cornea surface and super-gluing a plastic disc to cover the hole, needless to say, an excruciating ordeal. The hope was that the body would heal the hole, which required vascularization of the cornea, tissue which has no blood vessels normally (the second driest part of your body, next to your lens). I had many reapplications of these discs, but finally the blood vessels grew in and healed the wounds.
I was left with severely scarred corneas, but no option for corneal transplant because my body would reject them with the blood vessels now present. They had served a vital function, but now limited my options. I had severe astigmatism from the scarring and very compromised vision, much like you describe your vision with halos, blurring, like looking through a very dirty windshield.
My cornea doctor recommended trying scleral lens- hard contacts which with a layer of saline fluid between the inside of the lens and the cornea acted as an artificial cornea. They were transforming. I could see detail again which I thought was forever lost.
They have given me my life back to a large extent as I am a very visual person with sports and fine woodworking my passions. Still, I look through scarring and the resulting fog. Now, I am developing cataracts as I age (66) and am confronting the prospect of potentially difficult surgery with the scarring making for a challenging surgical environment. My local doctor doesn’t feel comfortable with it, and recommends I return to Mass Eye and Ear.
I will, but now I will be sensitive to their attitude and confidence. One of my main takeaways from my earlier experience with Mass Eye and Ear was the attending commenting to me that he never wanted to see me in the OR, although I connect this to the corneal transplant procedure…
It seems a big part of life as we age is learning to live with “conditions”. It’s been very humbling for me, and has transformed what I place value in, no longer things, instead, much more, relationships.
Neo:
I’m so glad to learn what you are going through and how successful you have been. Especially now that I have been diagnosed with a problem in my left eye. The doctor gave me a list of findings from my examination, and I don’t know which is causing this problem, but I have blurry vision in my left eye for which he is recommending YAG surgery.
Problem is, my wife and I are moving from Nevada to Ohio in mid June, and it might not be possible to get the surgery before we move. I have a first appointment Monday to have the surgeon look at my eye, and then see when he can schedule something.
Your experience gives me some hope — if only I can be as fortunate you have been in finding good treatment in a short period of time.
I’ll be looking forward to your next installment.
Here you go neo,
Timbuk 3 – The Future’s So Bright I gotta wear shades…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qrriKcwvlY
Wait a minute. You cut from finding the doctor to the day AFTER the surgery. Fill that hole in, please.
Gerard, neo got her roman numerals mixed up: today’s story is part v, the missing part iv you want is here, May 7 — https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/05/07/the-story-of-my-left-eye-so-far-part-iv/
Ah, well. I see now it’s part iv2, so, my mistake. But anyhow, part iv1 is May 7th
Air Force Doctors experienced doc can be wonderful as ‘Dave from N.E.’ mentioned above, I went to an emergency room in our town 25 miles West of San Antonio a few months ago with terrible abdominal pains due to my bowels not working at all, felt like I was having labor pains every ten minutes (that was my description) and they kind to stabilized me did the CT scans and put me in an Ambulance to the large Methodist hospital in San Antonio. There several hours later the surgeon came in to talk to me, I was think a bowel resection was probably going to be needed for months and months of problems and the surgeon came over a looked at my gut and asked me how many times I had been opened up and it was several for cancer stuff years ago. He told us that if you have never been opened up the stuff slips and slide inside but once it has been messed with it the guts kind of get sticky and bind up. That great doc decided to not cut but put me on nothing but a slow drip of to keep me hydrated and a bit of morphine and said it might take two or three days for my guts to use their peristaltic action to straighten out but it appear on the scans that that might happen before we need surgery. Great thing happened, a day and a half things started working again, I was so happy to have an Air Force retired doc who had worked with gut problems from wounds and know what to try before he cut me up.
My ER nurse that evening was an Army Reserve Lt. nurse who had a lot of experience and I think we have a lot of great medical expertise with first hand experience who don’t receive the appreciation for the skills they have acquired.
Military doctors get to see a lot of odd things, so they are flexible of mind. They learn unusual things that they can apply to other problems.
I am very happy you are back among the seeing!
Dave from N.E.:
My heart goes out to you. What a difficult experience! I hope Mass Eye does well by you if you need cataract surgery. If you don’t like what they say and want a 2nd opinion, please consider going to Uday Devgan in LA (Beverly Hills, to be technical). He likes a challenge, and takes on very difficult cases.
Oops about the Roman numerals. Will fix it later tonight.
It’s quite a tale! I’m glad there’s all this great progress in your story.
Inverted vision experiments
An early experiment in ‘perceptual plasticity’ was conducted by Psychologist George Stratton in1896. He used his inverted vision goggles, over a period of 8 days, and over time adapted to the point where he was able to function normally. When the glasses were removed, it took some time for him to adapt back to seeing the world as normal without them
=====================
Experiments show we quickly adjust to seeing everything upside-down
A researcher wearing goggles that inverted everything stumbled about wildly at first, but soon enough he was able to ride a bicycle
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/12/improbable-research-seeing-upside-down
=====================
“…the experiments examined the adaptation of perception when wearing reversal, prism and colour spectacles as well as half-prism and colour half-glasses. The subjects had to wear the glasses used depending on the experimental condition between 6 and 124 days.
From a methodological point of view, the studies were carried out under the everyday conditions of the subjects and thus not only the adaptation of perception but in particular that of sensori-motor coordination and control of human action could be examined. In doing so, they are an exemplary response to the demand for the ecological validity of experimental studies, which is often raised but rarely achieved. A first important publication is the work of Kohler “On the construction and changes of the world of perception, in particular on ‘conditioned sensations’” from the year 1951…”
From http://www.awz.uni-wuerzburg.de/archiv/film_foto_tonarchiv/filmdokumente/th_erismann_ikohler/
“The world is upside down” e The Innsbruck Goggle Experiments of Theodor Erismann (1883e1961) and Ivo Kohler (1915e1985)
===========================
feel better…
My partner lost significant central vision a decade or so ago due to quasi medical malpractice that caused her to flatline. Then two years ago, we were driving to MT, on our biannual back and forth between there and AZ. She closed one eye, and noted that she was blind in the other. Whoops. Popped into the local ER, they sent us to a Glaucoma “expert” in Missoula, and he told us it was cataracts. A relief. But he set the next appointment 6 months out, to talk about surgery. That wasn’t helpful, so I went back to the eye surgeon frond of a friend who had suggested the ER. He got her in the next week, and surgery on the 1st eye the next week. That went well, so 2nd eye a couple weeks later. And all of a sudden, she can see again, well enough that she wants a new car. Unfortunately, she has expensive tastes – her car before flat lining was a cheery red Mercedes 500SL with white interior. Still, it’s a relief with her driving again.
Neo:
I won’t disagree with your experience; after wearing glasses for 65 years (started at age 7) I underwent cataract surgery last year. My doc ran me through the pre-surgical measurement procedure twice at my request, two weeks apart and with a different tech, to make absolutely sure the numbers were right and I paid out of pocket the extra $1600 per eye for Toric lenses and the more complicated procedure they required, to deal with my severe astigmatism.
I was scheduled for each eye, two weeks apart; the right eye was first, surgery was at 9 AM, that night about 8 PM the cloudiness was clearing and as I walked out of the kitchen I was able to read the small print closed captioning on the TV from 40 feet away. I dropped the glass I was holding.
The next morning I experienced exactly what you did: sharp colors, precisely defined edges on leaves and grass, the ability to read signs at distance, and how bright sunlight was. “Stunning difference” doesn’t even come close.
Two weeks later the left eye was done and the results were the same. It’s 9 months later and I’m still tying to adjust to being 20/20 in both eyes without glasses (I was worse than 20/400 in both eyes before and the best glasses could do was 20/25 R and 20/30 L, primarily because of the astigmatism). I still occasionally reach up to remove my non-existent glasses at bedtime; old habits die hard.
I have to carry reading glasses everywhere, a willing burden now that the bifocal “coke bottle” lenses are gone, and good polarized sunglasses outside are a must because everything now is so bright. And, because for nearly the entire time I wore glasses with plastic or polycarbonate lenses which did double duty as safety glasses I’ve adopted a certain level of paranoia about getting things in my eyes so I keep ANSI-certified safety glasses handy; they’re just as ubiquitous for me as the extra pairs of reading glasses many of us have scattered everywhere.
I occasionally get mild instances of the “pea soup fog” you described but the wetting eye drops the doctor recommended (the non-preservative Systane Ultra PF capsules, if anyone’s interested) a few times a day help a geat deal with that.
I’m convinced it’s things like this that are as close to miracles as mortals can come.
It also makes me wonder why we have to wait until old age and cataracts impact our lives before these procedures are done. I would have paid nearly any amount to achieve this level of vision improvement 40 years ago.
Here’s hoping the next installment continues to describe a positive outcome from your surgery.
Hi Neo,
I love following this story, and the stories all the other commenters have to tell. Bless you all. Although I can’t help thinking I’m sitting at the old folks table 🙂
They [military doctors] learn unusual things . . .
Yes, I had a fungus infection affecting the nail of my big toe. There are various medications for that, but my doctor told me to use vaporub and squoosh it in there. Worked like a charm.
Get off my lawn! And put your shoes on sonny!
With your constant and wonderful daily output, who would have thought that your pre-surgery vision was so bad for so long??
We fans-of-neo are glad you’re enjoying sparkling vision.
On a related note, when I was younger I thought that older folk were talking way too much about their health. Now I realize that they were talking about the same thing that us then younger folks were talking about—namely, the various things we were doing. For the older folks, a bunch of the stuff they were doing was seeing this doctor, going for this procedure, seeing that doctor, taking these pills.
“…squoosh it in there…”
Sounds terrific, Chuck! (I’m at my wits end…)
How long does this treatment take—frequency of applications / number of days/months/years, etc.)?
As we languidly wind our way to the tale of Christy Brown . . .
How long does this treatment take
I don’t recall exactly, but it was weeks, not months. It does take a while for the nail to grow back in and even out. I applied it morning and evening, but I suppose one could do it more often, it isn’t invasive. Let me know if it works.
Neo: the story of your progress toward better vision is inspiring. Thank you. And thanks to all those, commenting here, who add their stories to yours. There is much to celebrate here: not least the courage and diligence to “look beyond” the first opinion or plan for treatment, but also the dissemination into many many communities of really incredibly powerful technologies like LASIK and cataract surgery.
Will do… Thanks again.
(Hey, maybe I’ll do a series on it!)
Elrod Penwhistle : cataracts occur usually with aging. There were no artificial lenses in your youth, in any event. You were limited to spectacles. Be grateful! Stop bitching!
Neo, happy for your good results from your surgery!
Ira M. Siegel:
Listen (I’ve cued it up for a 34-second segment that’s relevant):
Neo,
This is GREAT news. Enjoy your newly improved vision.
And may God continue to bless you.
Tuvea
Wife had hers done. Mine aren’t bad enough to justify it but I do get scintillating scotomas.
From Wikipedia:
“Many variations occur, but scintillating scotoma usually begins as a spot of flickering light near or in the center of the visual field, which prevents vision within the scotoma area. It typically affects both eyes, as it is not a problem specific to one eye. The affected area flickers but is not dark. It then gradually expands outward from the initial spot. Vision remains normal beyond the borders of the expanding scotoma(s), with objects melting into the scotoma area background similarly to the physiological blind spot, which means that objects may be seen better by not looking directly at them in the early stages when the spot is in or near the center. The scotoma area may expand to occupy one half of the visual area, or it may also be bilateral. It may occur as an isolated symptom without headache in acephalgic migraine.
In teichopsia, migraine sufferers see patterns in the shape of the walls of a star fort.
As the scotoma area expands, some people perceive only a bright flickering area that obstructs normal vision, while others describe seeing various patterns. Some describe seeing one or more shimmering arcs of white or colored flashing lights. An arc of light may gradually enlarge, become more obvious, and may take the form of a definite zigzag pattern, sometimes called a fortification spectrum (i.e. teichopsia, from Greek ??????, town wall), because of its resemblance to the fortifications of a castle or fort seen from above.[3] It also can resemble the dazzle camouflage patterns used on ships in World War I. Others describe patterns within the arc as resembling herringbone or Widmanstätten patterns.
The visual anomaly results from abnormal functioning of portions of the occipital cortex at the back of the brain, not in the eyes nor any component thereof, such as the retinas.”
I have seen all of these. The first time I was driving and it scared the **** out of me.
Here are some artist impressions:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=scintillating+scotoma&qpvt=scintillating+scotoma&form=IGRE&first=1&tsc=ImageHoverTitle
Beautiful!
Very happy for you, neo! What a wonderful gift to receive restored vision.
@ Cicero: “Elrod Penwhistle : cataracts occur usually with aging. There were no artificial lenses in your youth, in any event. You were limited to spectacles. Be grateful! Stop bitching!””
I said: “I’m convinced it’s things like this that are as close to miracles as mortals can come.”
That doesn’t sound like “bitching” to me.
And: “It also makes me wonder why we have to wait until old age and cataracts impact our lives before these procedures are done. I would have paid nearly any amount to achieve this level of vision improvement 40 years ago.”
As someone who has had life long issues with his eyes, including several surgical procedures over the years, I am very much aware of what technology was, and was not, available over the past 50 years. Had the technology been available 40 years ago I would have investigated taking advantage of it; receiving such a benefit even 5 or 10 years ago would have been worthwhile.
The point is the technology is available and to delay such an improvement in quality of life until it is “warranted” by age-related natural deterioration of vision seems, well, short sighted (pun intended).* It wasn’t there for me back then but it is available for everyone today, and who knows what further improvements will be available tomorrow.
* I do not exclude the possibility that the procedure I find such a benefit may have a service life requiring it to be repeated after some period, much as the lasik procedure must be repeated as eyes change with age. A 10-15 year service life at my age is pretty much a non-issue where the same 10-15 year service life at age 35 might not justify this particular procedure.