10 days after eye surgery

 

I had waited or put off getting eye surgery for as long as I could or as long as I felt that I could get away with diminishing sight in my right eye. For a time, I even found myself preferring to see less of the world around me. Fewer distractions, not having to actually look into people’s eyes and see myself, that kind of thing. For the most part, my left eye took up the slack so to see enough of the world around me, while my mind handled the recalibrations so that (at least for the first three years), I rarely even noticed the blurriness. 

 I guess, though, once calcification (or whatever it’s called) sets in under the lens of the eye, there isn’t that much in today’s medicine that’s going to stop it. Which brings me to why I waited so long, especially given that Taiwan's national health insurance covers the entire basic procedure and materials once you reach 55 years old – which was about 2 ½ years ago for me.

 The surface explanation is, I just couldn’t seem to get enough information to make an informed decision. It’s still somewhat of a riddle to me, almost embarrassing, yet not quite that, as to why I’m not fluent in Mandarin after almost thirty years. While I’m able to    communicate with ease very well when it comes to day to day topics, specialized topics are much more challenging. 

Whereas with Latin and Germanic languages, I find it quite simple to guess how to pronounce many words, the words (on the surface in most cases) of the Chinese language and all of its dialects have almost zero resemblance to English, Latin or any of the Germanic languages. 

 The short story is, whenever I want to speak about an unfamiliar field, such as cataract surgery, I need to learn lots of new vocabulary which won't continuously be readily accessible to me unless I recharge the vocabulary by regularly using it — which I don’t.  Thus it was quite challenging for me to get the information I needed to make an informed decision. And while I studied extensively on the internet, the medical industry doesn’t seem to do reviews for cataract procedures and materials like they do with computers, cars and appliances. 

 So I waited five years (which was in many ways simply another experiment for me) to finally commit to having the organic lens of my right eye removed and replaced with an acrylic one, and now I’m once again able to see very clearly. 

 And as for my previous reluctance to actually “look” into people’s eyes (to see them as me), I’ve gotten over that and now find it quite enjoyable to look into the eyes of others. I guess the reason I used to be hesitant to really look into the eyes of others, was to put it simply, due to a lack of self-honesty.  When I look into the eyes of others, I feel as though I see the nature of them. However, I also see the nature of myself as a reflection of them, which is cool when I’m standing self-honestly, yet not so cool if I’m not. Thankfully, I’ve been working on self-honesty; I have made a lot of progress and I now enjoy seeing clearly once again.