A couple of weeks ago I had an operation to remove my cataracts. Cataracts are cloudy smears over the lens of an eye. For the sufferer, it feels like you’re seeing everything from behind a very thick net curtain. By the last few weeks it was more like 450 denier tights; I have new respect for bank robbers. The bright summer this year was a boon – but when the first properly grey days arrived, I was sunk. And when the clocks went back, almost everything became impossible after 3.30 pm.
I had no choice in the matter at all – everybody on my mother’s side of the family develops cataracts at around my current age. So when my eyesight, never that great, was enhanced by fog patches, like a camera lens smeared with Vaseline, I didn’t panic. I just thought ‘here we go then’. And I had to wait an unusually long time for the op – the most commonly performed surgery by the NHS – because I have funny-shaped eyeballs requiring bespoke lenses.
The experience of the removal operation is very strange. The thought of surgical instruments in the eye is not a convivial one, but when the alternative is continuing to blunder about like Mr Magoo – adding salt to coffee, guessing the depth of steps, waving a cheery greeting to total strangers, etc. – you find that any qualms have melted away.
There is absolutely no pain or discomfort. Your eye is propped open Clockwork Orange-style and you stare up at a very, very bright light while they perform the process of phacoemulsification. In lay language, or as lay as possible, this is using an ultrasonic disrupter to disintegrate your misty old lens. Then they hoover the bits out, schlupp. You don’t see anything except furtive flickerings in the light. Then they slip in the new artificial one made from silicon polymers, and – hey bingo. I could suddenly see the details on the theatre ceiling. When I rose from the table like Frankenstein’s monster, the faces of the surgical team and the nurses were revealed to me. I realised I hadn’t actually seen a face in months.
I had to wear a visor every night for a week, with strict instructions not to rub my eyes in that period. I am a terrible old rubber of parts – I love a good rub – so I just kept the thing on throughout. At the very least, it was surely a conversation starter among the local community. They thought I was cosplaying a futuristic citizen, maybe.
Cataract vision isn’t painful, but it is a drag. When your job is writing, a big drag. Reading is also very difficult. This was bad for me, as reading is how I keep myself sane. It brings me serenity. I offer this up not as a boast, it’s just the way I am. Audiobooks can only do half that job; they are like taking a half-filled bath. So I used the time, with assistance from a kind sighted pal, to compile on YouTube a full listening catalogue of the film scores of Ennio Morricone, something I’d been meaning to do for decades. I couldn’t read the titles, but I can whistle all the tunes now.
I had to cut back on social media in the later stages, and I kept expecting somebody to wonder where I was, or say ‘You’re a bit quiet of late’. Of course, nobody did. What presences we imagine ourselves to be in other peoples’ lives!
I’ve been trying not to get all soppy about our beautiful planet or wander about like Professor Brian Cox with a daft grin on my chops
Fingers crossed, my eyesight is now very good. I’ve had to wear glasses since 1980, and even they could only ever go so far, so this level of detail from the naked eye is most peculiar. I have always wondered why other people say that their childhood is a smudgy hall of mirrors to them, before the reassuring solidity of the adult world. For me it’s been the exact opposite, and now I think I know why.
Also, colours are much more vivid. I’ve been trying not to get all soppy about our beautiful planet or wander about like Professor Brian Cox with a daft grin on my chops. At times it feels like the world is shouting at you. Turns out, there is a lot going on, about which I’ve had no idea for 46 years – leaves and brickwork and things further than four feet away in general. My cat, it turns out, is an absolute unit. Another plus is being able to write again in a reasonably-sized font. My poor editors have been receiving long screeds in 48 point and must have felt like I was bellowing at them. LIKE THIS.
Any downsides? The Rip Van Winkle effect. Everybody suddenly looks so old, including me. Andy Burnham looks as if he’s been baked. I physically flinched when I first saw Wes Streeting, no longer a fresh-faced lad but a slab of a middle-aged feller. And everything, it turns out, is so dirty.
My tips for fellow sufferers? If you have any questions about the condition or worries about the surgery, you’ll find them answered by the incredibly soothing videos on the subject posted by ophthalmic surgeon Dilraj Sahota on YouTube. Don’t worry – get it done! There’s so much to see.
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