Losing a Cataract

Losing a Cataract

Here’s the idea: Find the lid from one of those old Tupperware or Rubbermaid containers, should be frosted white; or get a an actual piece of frosted glass from an old glass shower door and look through it using only one of your eyes. If you can keep the other eye open and free from the lens that you are using, then so much the better.
Go ahead, I can wait.
Got it? Good. Now, try to read this document on your computer screen. Take a look at the photograph of my eye surgeon standing next to me. If you were to do that then you might get an idea of what I had to deal with for about the last year or so. That is what living with a cataract is like. Only, I couldn’t just take the plastic dish or frosted glass away from my eye. I had to live with it and deal with it on a daily basis.
I had to look well behind me to discover the vehicles in my blind spot while driving. I had to figure out how to do simple tasks like tying my shoes with a skewed sense of depth perception.
It wasn’t until I got an eye surgeon to remove the cataract that I could actually get a glimpse of what the real world looked like through that eye. Admittedly, my vision isn’t back to normal just yet. I still cannot read fine print through that eye, for instance, but I am confident that my body will adjust to the new lens that the surgeon inserted.
I am almost ecstatic over the detail that I can see through my left eye right now.
My ophthalmologist told me that cataracts are a malady that almost all of us will experience in our life if we live long enough. Diabetics are far more likely to get them and glaucoma another nasty disorder that reduces eyesight.
Having been a diabetic for over 20 years I think I might have had this coming.
I gave myself my first self-administered insulin injected within minutes of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s disintegration on January 28, 1986.
I did not see it at the time, but a nurse came in and informed me of it shortly after it happened. Though knowing the date of my first insulin injection helped me remember how long I had the illness, it could not prepare me for the work involved in managing it.
is a kind of “patient managed” illness that requires close guidance from a team of medical experts that includes a family doctor or personal physician and an endocrinologist that specializes in diabetic treatment. One of the core requirements for effectively managing the treatment of diabetes is for the patient to closely test and monitor his or her blood sugar levels. When the patient is able to do that and report those results to his or her personal medical team then an effective plan for treating the disease is possible. It took a long time for me to get this kind of treatment and to give my condition the kind of attention that it deserved.
Though I don’t want to waste an ordinate amount of time beating myself up over this. I do understand that I might not have had to suffer from the blinding effects of a cataract in my left eye if I had taken more care to closely monitor my blood sugar levels and stay in better contact with my team of medical professionals.
While I can bask in the luxury of my newfound eyesight in my left eye, I must now make the effort to adjust to this newly implanted lens as I also have been told that I have a cataract slowly forming in my right eye as well.
I can still see rather well out of it, but I also know that I will probably have to visit my eye surgeon again sometime in the future.
I will keep you posted.
About the author:
Frank Austad is an insulin dependent diabetic who works with his wife repairing computers and other IT equipment in her business, in Everett, Washington.
He holds a CompTia A+ certification, as well as the Network+ for computer hardware, software and Networking technology. He has also completed training for the MCITP and CCNA certifications, and holds a Microsoft Technology Associate certification.