All the way to the hospital yesterday morning, I felt like I wasn’t doing this: it was someone else and I was just in the car watching her. After all, I’m too young to need cataract surgery. Or–I think I am. And I had done everything I could find out about to avoid such intervention. Chinese herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, vitamins–and still my vision was getting worse, rapidly. Obviously, being an artist, this was frightening, both the surgery and the possible loss of vision, with or without surgery. I was almost canceling the surgery date right up until the last minute. I probably wouldn’t have done it without the encouragement of my daughter, Tamar. She’s had enough medical crises in her life to know when to be alternative and when to trust traditional Western medicine.
I was terrified up until they gave me something intravenously to relax me, not a minute too soon. As for the surgery, all went well. It’s a fascinating process, awake with my eye open, psychedelic lights flashing and water flushing the eye. Everyone connected to the eye clinic at the hospital was warm and supportive, including the doctor, nurses, technicians, and everyone else who passed through. All the other patients in the pre- and post-op room who were doing their second eye kept praising the miracle of modern medicine. Now I am too.
And the best thing: I Can See! Better than I can ever have imagined. I looked at the painting hanging over my piano just a bit ago and realized it is a much lighter color than I had thought. Its like the early morning fog has lifted. And I can see the needles on the pine trees in my yard. I had been wondering what my paintings would look like after surgery. Now I know. It is different. And I like it!