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Cataracts

Violet, fuchsia, crystal
Translucent radiance
I, helpless, gaze upward
Transfixed
Terrified
Soothing solution irrigates
Ocular orb

Immobilized
Despite pain
Despite terror
Despite failed anesthesia

Still
Inside this trauma
Light
Transcendence
Glorious, ruthless beauty
Relentless, thankfully
Awash in exquisite color
Such rich splendor

Despite pain and the terror keeping me Utterly immobile (I don't want to be blind, after all)

Unlooked for, welcome, magnificent gift
Being able to watch the surgery on my eye in vivid, stunning, majestic color: daisy yellow, amber too all shot through with the violent clarity of light
Luminescent
I'm on the verge of some realization here
Too many images coalescing together
Submerged, aqueous
Emerge again

Boon from Deity for unexpected pain?

Mayhap...

Why is irrelevant. So is how, in truth.
I am simply grateful for some measure of solace from this horror that I think rivals stories of Tantalus and Sisyphus if set side by side and some poor soul were set the task of enduring this o'er and o'er upon his eye incapable of movement lest blindness be the end result...

I was quite horrified when notified at first of my plight: cataracts, which developed in my 20s initially.
Now, in my 40s, I was informed they'd have to go or my sight would deteriorate even further - a change in my eyeglass prescription would not suffice

Sheer terror

For quite some time I delayed (ostriches aren't the only ones perfecting that technique)
Until, at last, I could not see. Twas frustrating beyond endurance. Things I knew I should be able to view, gone. I, incapable.

I was hazardous; I began to comprehend that I would not be able to drive after a time should I not submit my eyes to surgery.

I went, finally, for the preoperative brouhaha where they gave me all relevant information. I'd done some research, but it was rather terrifying so I ceased that.

Apparently, unlike other surgeries, there is this possibility for complications to occur from the procedure weeks, months, even years afterward.

Admittedly, that chilled my marrow. But, you see, there truly is no recourse; the alternative is blindness.

I read voraciously. I do not know that braille could fulfill my need, my addiction here. And, yes, I am, admittedly, full on addicted to the written word.

I foraged on. Today, I had the second eye done. They did a much better job with anesthesia this time. Though I was awake (they give you Versed for twilight time, then numb the nerves to your eye with Lidocaine), this time no pain did I feel, though when he operated I was wide awake again and saw it all a second time.

Twas a remarkable thing. The eye surgeon tells me tis rare for people to see the surgery with such clarity. Most see only shadows and light. A few, though, he says, see vivid color.

This time, I saw him make the incisions. I saw how he peeled the cataracts away and shook them loose with the equipment he used. I saw the magnifying lens he used to watch what he was doing and the larger device to focus everything. I saw him vaguely. And then, clearly, light, oh light, magnificent light and vivid color. I saw when he irrigated my eye and the translucent, crystalline flow of the fluid rushing over my eye. I saw when he placed the silicone lens in my eye.

I find myself trying to understand precisely how I could see. My other eye was covered completely with wholly opaque material. I didn't wonder this until I told a friend who's had the procedure done (and also happens to be a retired physicist) I'd seen it. He didn't believe me, thought it wasn't possible, argued. I told him what I saw the first time (I haven't spoken with him since the second surgery yet) and he said it wouldn't be possible because of how closely they'd be working to my eye. I told him it was indeed possible for I had seen it. Last I knew, he was working on a scientific explanation for the phenomenon.


I wonder what he'll make of it when I tell him this latest bit.

I wonder what I make of it...
Written by Savaja
Published
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