24 August The eyes have it!

My annual trip home this summer was longer than I usually go because I had decided it was time to invest in me and to have surgery to correct my long and short sightedness. Like most people I began with glasses for reading, but for the last ten years I've needed to wear them for everything and to have a prescription mask for diving.

A chance meeting with a friend who had had laser treatment started me thinking and then researching my options, but when I spoke with the surgeon I'd chosen he advised I was too old for laser treatment, it's not recommended as a long term fix for over 45s.. He suggested lens replacement just as you would if you had cataracts.

This was most prophetic because when I went for the initial consultation he found that I had early stage cataracts in both eyes. Now it was a case of 'do you want surgery next week or in 5 years?' I opted for next week. First I had my right eye, dominant eye, fixed with a new lens that would give me clear middle to far distance vision and one week later I went back to have my left eye done. This lens would do the middle to near vision and my brain would blend the two images.

Between the surgeries I discovered how much my colour vision has been affected by the cataracts. Through my new right lens I was seeing white paper as pure white. Looking at the same paper with my left eye it was cream. Until this moment I didn't realise that my perception of colours had been affected and I'd effectively red waves were being filtered out.

It is amazing! I am so impressed with my lens replacement surgery. It was quick, less than twenty minutes under full sedation, painless and two days after my second op I my sight was good enough for safe driving. The first day after the op I was particularly sensitive to light while my pupil returned to normal dilation. The surgeon advised I would probably need to wear +1.5 glasses for reading a long time and I do, otherwise I have perfect vision for the rest of my life and never a cataract. As I get older I might need to increase the magnification of the readers, or if there is thickening on the artificial lenses this can be removed by laser. Now I can put on eye make up looking in the mirror not the previous haphazard application by feel. I can dive with a normal mask. No steamy fog on glasses when you open the oven door and no sweaty red marks on the bridge of my nose.

Would I do it again? In the blink of an eye!