Double Vision

Unbelievably enough I'm headed for cataract surgery.  After suffering double vision in my left eye for over a year I've decided that enough is enough! For a while there I thought I could live with it. I mean, we don't really need two healthy eyes, do we? All we have to do is close one and things become clear. That would seem to be enough! (For the record that was proved wrong when I tried this exercise while biking and veered sharply off course). And for the record, bad vision has been a part of my life for a very long time. In fact, it dates way back to 4^th grade. There I was, in Mrs. Purdy's class, desperately trying to read the board (it was, believe it or not, a black board—the dark ages!!) and fighting off a vicious headache. And indeed, just 30 years later (give or take a few..maybe even 10?), one eye would seem to suffice. Cataract or not I still identify the child approaching my bed in the middle of the night by vocal cues. Visually my progeny are all just smears of varying shapes and sizes!

Yet as the solutions for improving my visual acuity become fewer in number (and outrageously expensive) I've come to the conclusion that one eye really isn't enough. For example, I've begun to find it absolutely unbearable that when I close that other eye, the healthy one, everything is, well, nothing! Whatever's out there is a big, ugly blur…or even, two blurs. So I'm taking the plunge, putting away my swimming goggles for one month (boo hoo), and lowering the statistically-assessed average age for cataract surgery (73-75!!) significantly.

On the eve of this procedure I'm wondering what I'm actually going to gain from "better" vision. After all, as someone who has suffered from extreme myopia just about forever, I'll still have to wear glasses. I won't be as lucky as that friend of mine who was able to throw her glasses away the morning after Lasik surgery. Although I haven't come up with a suitable answer to this question, I can confidently state that double vision has added absolutely nothing to my quality of life. In fact, I think it has only clouded my already obscured sense of reality—and I mean that both literally and figuratively: Blurry vision--blurry existence?

 I've opted for the surgery after coming to the conclusion that decent vision is a blessing that one must embrace. No more double headlights speeding towards me late at night (Good news for the parents of those children I carpool from hither to yon); some chance at removing the various splinters my barefoot children happen to attract; the ability to help my ten year old daughter put on a necklace and to not have to ask my husband to read me the tickertape news headlines on the television. (There's still no hope for conquering those miniscule text messages that pop up on my cell phone but disability has actually allowed me to reach beyond my shell and connect with passers-by on the street! Not all visual impediments are negative ones!)

And here I've found an answer to my query! Achieving better vision will enable me to exercise my right to free choice! I choose vision. I choose clarity. I choose to see things for what they are before my mind decides to interpret them for what they might be.