Seeing Clearly Now...

I'm having cataract surgery in the morning. This will be surgery number three since I injured my eye 3+ years ago. The entire process has been a bit like peeling an onion. Layer upon layer of treatments, and overall I'm glad I didn't know what all was involved from the beginning as it would probably have felt pretty overwhelming at the time.

I injured my cornea in March of 2014, and I distinctly remember a visit with the cornea specialist that July, when I realized the damage was permanent. My eye wasn't going to 'get well', as I'd originally thought.

So a cornea transplant in September of 2015, which I thought would fix everything, and it did drastically improve my vision. Then a little reattachment procedure the following January of 2016 when stitches came loose, and somewhere in the fall of 2016, when I'd go for follow up visits and could not read anything beyond the biggest 'E' at the top of the eye chart, even with a brand new cornea, I realized all the steroid drops I was putting in my eye daily were causing the lens to cloud. I'd developed a rather substantial cataract that would need yet another surgery.

And oh the insurance issues involved. Changing insurance three times, my situation becoming the dreaded 'pre-existing', having to go self-pay, blah blah blah. Rather, I'm going to just be thankful they can do the surgeries, we are able to cover the costs, and hopefully this surgery tomorrow will indeed restore the major portion of my distance vision in my eye.

The surgery coordinator may have told me, at my last appointment, that 'everyone develops some condition', I can't recall what it's called, where 'scar tissue from the cataract surgery forms and you have to go have yet another surgery to laser off that scar tissue'. I may have felt a little bit like my hair was on fire when she told me that, but after 3+ years of this business, I just moved on.

So tomorrow I'm going in for surgery #3, getting a fancy lens, and hopefully within a week or two I'll be able to drive and see and my brain will have to get used to seeing with both eyes, rather than the one it's been using for quite awhile now.

I chose NOT to look up cataract surgery on Youtube. Sometimes too much information is just that, too much.

I'm hopeful this will be the last one. Hopeful this will be the fix. Pretty darned excited to go get prescription reading glasses for the first time in forever, if all goes well. I'll let everyone know. Prayers for Dr. K's hands to be steady and sure are always appreciated. So it's off to bed for me. 5:50 a.m. is going to feel darned early after seven years of not waking up to a clock.