Eye Surgeries

Cataract surgeries are commonplace these days. Just about everyone my age has either had them or is having them, me included. My left eye was done last Friday. Second eye will be done sometime in March. The surgery itself is simple, but for me the first week after, which is what I'm in now, is a bother. I'm not supposed to bend over (get my head lower than my heart) or lift anything heavier than 5 pounds. That makes farm chores rather difficult. Fortunately, Johnny has stepped in to help with some of the more impossible things, and I have become quite good at "squats" or ballet "plies" (however that is spelled) to keep from bending over. The five pound requirement, however, is a mite ridiculous so I figure if I don't have to strain to lift something, it's not too heavy.

Also a bother are the three sets of drops (not counting my regular eye drops for glaucoma) that must be taken four times a day, five minutes apart. Taken together, these requirements mean I'm not out pruning the pines for awhile, toting hay bales or feed sacks. I "could" be cleaning house but that is no fun and not all that easy with one eye that now is beginning to see without the need for glasses while the other eye still needs glasses. My brain must be very confused.

Earlier this winter I had laser surgeries on both eyes for glaucoma, in an attempt to open up the drainage canals that are too closed and causing elevated eye pressure which in turn is murdering my optic nerves. Surgery on the first eye did not seem to do any good at first so the second eye surgery was not done... until months later when the first eye's pressure dropped to everyone's surprise. Those surgeries were simple in-the-doctor's-office-and-out. And they seem to have worked. At least my eye pressure went from above 20 to below. I hope that makes my optic nerves happy as I had already lost some peripheral vision and would prefer not to lose any more. Johnny kept pointing out soaring hawks to me that I could not see without bobbing my head up and down until the bird appeared in a non-blind-spot area of my vision.

The eye surgeon says the cataract surgeries may also reduce my eye pressure some, which would be very good news. The other good news is that once the second eye's cataract is removed, I will only need glasses for reading.

Laser cataract surgery was invented, I recently learned, in 1981 by Patricia Bath, a remarkable woman born in Harlem, New York City, in 1942, just a few years before I was. Her father was an immigrant from Trinidad; her mom a descendant of slaves and Native Americans. Wikipedia says:

"She was the first woman member of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, first woman to lead a post-graduate training program in ophthalmology, and first woman elected to the honorary staff of the UCLA Medical Center (an honor bestowed on her after her retirement). Bath was the first black person to serve as a resident in ophthalmology at New York University. She is also the first black woman to serve on staff as a surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center. Bath is the first African-American woman doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. The holder of five patents,^[1] she also founded the non-profit American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in Washington, D.C."

Her story in Wikipedia is amazing and inspiring:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Bath

All of us who are having our clouded vision restored through laser removal of cataracts owe a huge dept of gratitude to Patricia Bath.