Mrs Magoo, post-op

It was time for cataract surgery....I had been mistaking things for other objects, or my vision was so fuzzy I couldn't make them out. My husband accused me of being like Mr. Magoo, only a feminine version, we called "Mrs. Magoo", who saw life through such cloudy vision, it caused me to endanger my and others' situations.

Fireworks, as seen through a cataract

I had one more Magoo-ish incident before the surgery. When Doug was driving us down from Tahoe so I could have surgery the next day in Oakland Kaiser, my vision was worse than ever. I confessed to him that I couldn't see the big green highway signs until they came up in my passenger side window. "Another reason that I'm driving and you're having the surgery, right?", he said. So true.

When I had the measurements done on my eyes, it was said that I would benefit from going with a "Toric" lens in my eye, one that could be turned on an axis and cancel out the "steepness" of my cornea, which caused an astigmatism. I had to pay extra for this lens, but it still wasn't the most costly one. It was the one I needed, letting me see more crisply at distance and maybe for the computer. My rapidly progressing cataract was so bothersome to me because it had only been 8 or so months since I had seen clearly, so I went for it. The nurses in the OR praised me for paying extra for the "Gucci" lens.

Before the surgery, I was reading a book...."All the Things We Cannot See", by Anthony Doerr, which seems appropriate, right? I loved it so much that I read it with a magnifying glass, with good light, while tilting my head to see if I could go around my cloudy lens. Sometimes it seemed to work. The book was due before I finished it, so I returned it to the South Lake Tahoe library before we traveled to the Bay Area for the surgery. When I got back, my vision was so bright, that I could read the print without glasses or contacts....and I thought this surgery was mostly for distance vision! The Toric lens, (which isn't for everyone's eye), has me seeing the computer and not so fine print (as long as I hold it pretty far), without glasses!

The only downside, that is downright depressing, is that I can see more wrinkles. It seems as if I have aged 10 years over night....of course that's only my opinion, since everyone else has been looking at me like this all along! No wonder I had been receiving more comments, like "Well, if you were my mother, I would suggest that you make this decision....after all...at YOUR age...." Gosh. It's time to start testing wrinkle creams. My doctor laughed and told me that most people just discover that their homes aren't as tidy. They see dust bunnies that they didn't realize were there. Well there's that too.....

I've been testing my vision All The Time. In the shower, I can now tell the difference between the shampoo and conditioner bottles, which most folks have a hard time with after they turn about 42, which is normal, but annoying. Have you ever applied lotion to your hair in an hotel? Not easy to get out.

"Now I can read that sign over there!" "Look over there at the robin flying with it's straw for it's nest in it's mouth!"
But, when covering my "new eye", the cloudiness of the right eye is more pronounced; I was told that that might be the case.

As if on cue, I received a notice from the DMV to renew my driver's license. I worried and stewed about the vision test I'd have to perform. Testing my vision on each eye on street signs didn't give me much confidence. I decided to go for it and walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles for my test. I figured that if I failed, I could get an extension till I had surgery on the other eye.
I sat in the waiting area, which faced the eye charts, trying not to look like I was attempting to memorize the lines.
In an abnormally short amount of time, my number was called, and I smiled and purposefully didn't offer any information about my level of confidence of my vision.
First, the man pointed and said, "Now, with both eyes read the 3rd line on chart C". I aced that of course.  "Now cover your left eye and tell me the 2nd line on chart A". I took a breath and murmured, "Hmm, not quite as clear", ....as I tried to focus. I said, "CFDBE". "Good!", he said, to my surprise!
I breezed through the left eye, of course, and was delighted to be granted my driver's license renewal.
It turns out that I may have been testing my vision on smaller letters at the DMV by sitting farther away from the chart and I'm embarrassed to say that I wasted the minutes I tried to memorize the chart.

A few weeks later, I'm still testing the parameters of my vision. I can see the newspaper crossword as long as it's a little far away from my usual reading distance, and I'm so glad to see the swallows flying in the distance...and that's with my right eye still seeing a little cloudy. One day....another day, I'll sign up for a new adventure with cataract surgery on my right eye. No worries.

Lily Lake after surgery

Mrs. Magoo

When coming through the gate of the community pool at our mobile park in Palm Springs, I leaned my head to my husband and whispered, "Who are those people on the other side? Anyone we know? "
He looked incredulously at me and said, "Oh my gosh! You're becoming like Mrs Magoo!"
He was right, but I said, "Well I don't want to offend someone by not speaking to them, and I can't quite make them out."

Many younger readers may not recognize the reference to a bald, myopic cartoon character called Mr Magoo, played with the voice of Jim Backus (who may or may not be remembered more as Thurston Howell III, the millionaire on Gilligan's Island). Mr Magoo mistakes everything for something else, and often puts himself in dangerous situations.

Another day, when we proceeded to the far side of the pool, I said to a friend lounging there, "Hi Lisa, Where's Cathy today?" As soon as I had those words out of my mouth, I saw Cathy's belongings on the lounge next to Lisa's. With the sun shining in my eyes, I followed a voice that was about 10 feet away in the pool. Cathy was bobbing around on a noodle, calling out "Here I am Patty! Not going blind, are you?"  I mumbled something about the glare of the sun....

One of the worst things that has happened is when I picked up my son at the airport, I almost ran through a stop sign. I really didn't see it, but I accredited it to being excited to see him. I decided to let him drive me around. I notoriously find it hard to be a passenger, but he drove very nicely.

While driving recently on the freeway toward Yuma, Arizona, Doug was driving, since I banned myself from being behind the wheel. He steered valiantly, I might say, through a sand storm, white knuckles and all.

I said, "This is amazing! I'm going to take a picture of this so I can show the doctor how I really see." So, I took the photo with my iPhone, and when done, I saw Doug look toward me to see what I was doing. When he turned his head away from the road, I instantly worried that I had distracted him from driving. I whipped around to look at the road, and saw us rapidly gaining on a black car that seemed to have stopped ahead of us! I braced myself, pointed, and said "Car!!", as my life did the proverbial passing before my eyes.  .....We came upon the said stopped car, and to my amazement, ran over it, as I realized that all it was was a rectangular patch of tar in the road! Doug said, "You're really going to have to trust my vision over yours!" Still my heart was racing and my arms were tingling as I realized we were still alive.

Only yesterday, my husband was driving us around town, and I saw a young child's electric wheelchair strapped to the back of a truck. I thought, "Oh, that poor child. We should pray for the family. It must be really hard for them." When we pulled up alongside, I saw that it was a gardening truck with a fancy lawnmower strapped to the back of it! Once again the subject of Mrs. Magoo was brought up.

Having worked in an eye clinic for 17 years, I heard many complaints from patients about not being able to drive at night because of the glare of car lights with halos around them. Then there is the story of the sun causing another type of glare, or haze, that I can also attest to.....not to mention not being able to read the crossword puzzle clues without squinting, or with extra light. That is a real pain to me.....since I always look forward to doing a crossword after breakfast. Right now it's not so relaxing. So all of this adds up to cataracts. I'm scheduled to have the worst eye operated on this month, and I have confidence that I'll have my good distance vision back afterward.

All of this is normal, you know, "At your age", I've been told too many times recently. Cataracts happen to almost everyone if they live long enough. That's what I used to tell the patients, and now, here I am, one myself.