Through a lens darkly

Babe goes to the mattresses, where we will soon join him to refresh ourselves after a strenuous day of traveling by mass transit to Boston and back during heavy rains and thunderstorms and spending 3 out of 4 hours at Mass Eye and Ear waiting, waiting, waiting. As Tuck said, "Thank God your time isn't worth anything."

"You'll shoot your eye out," says the mom in "A Christmas Story," and now the wicked awesome doc at Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary informs us the cataract in our right eye is operable and attributable to one or more of the following:

Trauma
Diabetes
Steroids
The aging process.

As we told the old boy, Tuck stopped beating us years ago, we don't have diabetes, and we've never been on steroids. That leaves the aging process. The upside was the doctor's residential sidekick's calling us -- sort of -- "young" . . . Most cataract patients are 10-20 years older than we are, while some are 10-20 years younger . . . He recommended without pressuring us that we get the thing done now while we're still in good health. Gak. Goomp had his cataracts removed, one after the other in succession, about ten years ago and loved the results. The procedure costs $10,000, but for you, with insurance, it's a mere $1,000.

That's where we're at. It's the most successful and most performed operation in the nation, if not the universe, says Doc Matthew F. Gardiner of Mass Eye and Ear. He performs eye surgery every Wednesday and has the elegant hands of a surgeon. They make a small cut, remove the cloudy lens and then insert a new, improved artificial lens. 'Guess it's time to bite the bullet. We could be in a bed on the sixth floor at MEEI by mid August with local anesthesia and intravenous fluids. You go in early morning, have the thing done and then go home that afternoon with a patch over the offending eye and a follow-up appointment the next day. 'Hate the thought of it, but seeing through a glass darkly, as we have been through the right eye of late, is no picnic, especially for a visual artist like ourselves. As Goomp always says, getting old is not for the faint of heart. You could lose an eye, but the success rate is 95%.

This morning as we were preparing to resew a button on the little robin's-egg-blue linen blouse we intended to wear to our appointment, we had a horrifying We-R-JuJu moment. JuJu was our beloved Grammy, Mummy's mother who thought the sun rose and set on her little Sissikins up until we hit puberty. In her later years -- she lived to be 92 -- Grammy used to ask us to thread needles for her so she could mend this and that. Her eyesight was fading, so she couldn't see well enough to thread them herself. This morning we found ourselves unable to thread a needle to resew a button on that little linen blouse . . . 'Had to ask Tuck to do it for us. Sigh.

Comments

[Teresa]

Here's to a successful operation and lovely much clearer vision when it's done. Celebrate the fact that you can have this done relatively quickly here in America.

I know a woman who lives in England. She was on a 9 month waiting list to get hers done. Because she held some "important job" she was bumped up to 6 months. (while she celebrated her good fortune, I wondered about the poor soul who had been waiting for 9 months or longer and got bumped to make way for her...)

Sometimes surgery is the better alternative. Especially since we don't want you going blind. :-)

[Tara]

My father had the operation 5 years ago and he was thrilled with the results.

He was able to read the newspaper and books without any glasses and he says his vision is better now (he's 80) than it was 20 years ago.

You will be happy with the results.

[goomp]

My experience was similar to Tara's father. Had one eye done about ten years ago and the other 5 years ago. As my ophthalmologist said last year when I went to him to have scar tissue from the most recent implant removed electronically, "You are reading like a 14 year old." I am 86.

[pam]

My Mom had it done in her 80s and was very pleased with the results, I know you will be too. :)