Here I go again. This time, it’s been a year or so since I’ve written something. This post, this explanation, will also be my first attempt at rebuilding some “muscles” I’ve neglected for too long.
2023 was a dark year for me. I don’t write well when I’m feeling hopeless, or afraid, or anxious. Though I’m often those things, that’s not my best self.
January 2023’s Troy started off hopefully, optimistically. December’s Troy was terrified, angry, resentful. In early March I went to my eye doctor for my annual eye checkup. As a Type 1 Diabetic, I see my eye doctor every spring. I’ve seen the same eye doctor for years, and I love her. My eyes have always been generally healthy and normal (I’ll explain in a moment).
Until last March.
I’d noticed that my eyes had grown just a little foggy, like when you first open them in the morning. But it wasn’t going away. I started hoping it was just “a thing” that’d go away. But at my appointment, my doctor said it looked like I had the very beginnings of cataracts. She wasn’t concerned and said it was very common. She said we’d track it, and that I’d probably have to have surgery in a few years.
But it got worse, very quickly.
Before I go further, I want to head off some righteous, and correct, commentary. I know, I probably waited too long to go back. It didn’t, however, matter in the end.
By August I had to stop driving. I hated it, having to ask for help getting anywhere. I couldn’t read anymore, and my glasses were no longer effective. In fact, they were making it worse. So I stopped wearing them.
I should explain the next complication. Historically, my eyesight isn’t very bad. I have excessive floaters in my eyes from the months before my diabetes was diagnosed. I have persistent trauma to my left eye from a sharp stick (true story), and I’m colorblind. But the main reason I wear glasses is to correct my double vision. My eyes don’t look in exactly the same direction. Without a prism in one of my lenses, I see two of everything, stacked closely together, one image slightly higher and to the right of the other.
Then, one morning in early September, I sat down at my drawing table. I turned on my lamp and put a new piece of paper on the stand. Drawing had become difficult. Even a little painful. And I could only do it in fifteen minute chunks. I drew a line with my pencil.
And couldn’t see it. At all. There was nothing there.
I went back to my doctor. In moments she’d become alarmed. The cataracts had grown very, very quickly and from the center of my eyes. I needed surgery.
So in November I had both lenses replaced with silicone implants. The surgery was smooth, quick, and painless.
At my post-op the next day we found that the pressure in my left eye had become unsustainable, so it was relieved with a needle. That was not my favorite. My next appointment was scheduled for the end of November.
In the interim, two things happened: At first, I could see things in front of me sharply, though doubled. Then, I couldn’t. Everything got blurry again, and it changed all day everyday. It was scary.
My doctor told me I’d developed complications in the form of edemas in the backs of my eyes, and they were getting worse. I had to wait 8-12 weeks to check if they were healing.
Two months without glasses. Two months of double vision. Two months of near constant headaches and nausea. Two more months inability to do any of the things I’m good at, and have a passion for. I was bereft.
More importantly, I had lost some hope, and most of my optimism. I’d become convinced it would never be right again. Dark.
A few weeks ago, at the 10-week mark, I went back to the eye doctor. I felt little hope. I still couldn’t see very well, and though it seemed like I could see a little better, I was convinced it was an illusion, driven by hope and desperation. My wife went with me, for support, for clarity. My eyes were scanned. The edemas in my left eye had disappeared, and the ones in my right eye had dramatically shrunk. My doctor said, “Let’s see if we can correct it.”
She swung the binocular thing over and started flipping through lenses. “One or two?” “Two.” “Two or three?”…
I grew excited because I could read most of the letters. She swung the binoculars away and said, “Well Troy, I think I’m going to write you a prescription.”
It was very…emotional.
And here I am, writing. Perhaps not my best, or even well, but still…
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