Oh Cataracts How I Loathe You

It happened about four years ago...my vision started to slowly decrease and I made an appointment to go get my eyes checked and hopefully some contacts. I had chalked it up to staring at a computer screen for all of my days...or sitting to close to the tv...all the cliche things you hear people talk about. So I figured I would get glasses or contacts and whola it would all be better. So I walk into my appointment and sit down in the chair when the doctor looks into my eyes I am a little disturbed by what he says...it went a little something like this.... "Oh my gosh...unbeleiveable...I just can't believe that.." All the while I am thinking....hey buddy I am still here and now I am just slightly starting to freak out so do you think you can fill me in on what is going on in my eyes that is so unbelievable?!!!?!!! He then tells me that I have what is known as Posterior Sub capsular Cataracts and all the oohing and aahing is because I am the youngest person he has even seen have it. Well first things first I made him write that diagnosis down because obviously I had never heard of it and first thing when I got home I was going to have a question and answer session with my dear friend Google. I then asked him...so what does this mean..what do we do about it? He says...well I don't do anything about it you will have to see a specialist and based on how quickly it is progressing you are going to have to have surgery, BUT (of course there was a but this is MY life after all) I typically see that doctors like to wait until you are about 40 to do the surgery because your eyes are not done developing and I am not sure how it will affect them...plus you will forever be in reading glasses. Now tell me that's not a lot of information to process at the age of 23... not only can I not see, I will have to have surgery (ON MY EYES NONE THE LESS!!) and now will forever be in a pair of reading glasses...not contacts that you leave in and forget about reading glasses that you have to carry with you every second of the day just in case you need to read something. So I of course procrastinated (that's what I do) just hoping that maybe I would wake up one day and it would be gone but to no such avail matter of fact it actually got worse...much, much worse...so I made an appointment with a specialist. She looked at my eyes and confirmed what the last doctor had said and promptly went into the hall way to talk to her co-workers about how she could not believe it and I was the youngest one she had seen with cataracts at this stage...all the while I am sitting on the other side of the door thinking to myself...Hey there lady I am going blind not deaf and I can hear every single word you are saying. So anyway when they were finished gossiping she came in and she said that yes I will have to have surgery but she was not in a hurry to do it since it was only her first time to see me and she wasn't real sure how fast it was progressing. Fast forward a few months and it got even worse although I wasn't sure it could. I wanted a second opinion and went to a wonderful doctor who didn't scare the crap out of me or go in the hallway to talk about me. What he did do however was schedule my surgery...like right then for like one week away. I remember sitting in that chair asking if there was any other way, anything else we could try. All of my questions were promptly answered with a no. It had progressed to far and the only fix was surgery. So surgery it was...one eye at a time mind you about a month apart, so I just kept thinking...Lord let this go smoothly because if not when it comes time to do the second eye I will be like trying to get the dog in the bathroom to take a bath...clinging on to the hospital doors. Well surgery day came and went and then I had the next eye done....and believe it or not for someone cutting your eye open it really wasn't to bad. :-) It has now been two years this month since my cataracts surgery and my vision is no longer cloudy, but it will never be the same. You see when they took out my lens and replaced it with a what I like to call "fake" lens, my eyes essentially went from bifocals (being able to see far and close) to being monofocal...which means I do need reading glasses but since I hate them I try to slide by without them which inevitably means I can't read most things clearly. Not being able to see up close turns things like plucking your eye brows or trimming your childs finger nails into very interesting tasks. I also can't see at night, I used to LOVE driving at night with the windows down and the radio up...now I don't drive at night unless I absolutely have to and when I do there is a lot of praying involved. I was the youngest one they had ever seen with cataracts and to think I was only going in to get some contacts!