seeing through a mirror, dimly

So, I am wearing my (kind of) new glasses as I type. My vision is improved, but still not perfect. But I think this is as good as it gets for me . . . at least for now.

When I went back to my eye doc and complained about the fuzziness in my left eye, he patiently took all the measurements yet again. Yes, the prescription and prism were slightly off in the left lens, he agreed.

"But I think it's the cataract that's causing most of your trouble," he added, looking up from my very thick chart. "If these changes don't help, we'd better start thinking about surgery."

We'd actually been talking about cataract surgery since he'd discovered the little rascals 5 years ago. The cataracts were small, however, and my doctor urged me to wait as long as I could before having them removed. He had two main reasons for waiting:

1) they didn't have replacement lenses in my prescription. I would need additional, experimental lasik surgery on top of the cataract surgery to fully correct my vision.

2) because my eyes are so elongated (from my astigmatism?), my retinas are stretched as taut as a rubber band. This increases my changes ten-fold to experience retinal detachment during surgery. Time will reduce that percentage, as the retina gradualy relaxes a bit.


Yep, time was definitely on my side. But the latest eye exam revealed that, even though the cataract in my left eye hadn't grown much, it was in the worst possible spot, causing light to refract and bend in annoying ways. For instance, even if I close my right eye, I see double! And no lens can remedy that.

But overall, the new specs do all right. Darren, the frazzled optician, will get a much-deserved break from me . . . but who knows how long I can live this double-visioned life?

I had to smile during this morning's sermon, when the pastor quoted the verse from 1 Corinthians 13: "For now we see through a mirror, dimly. But then, we shall see--face to face!"

Oh, can I ever relate!