Cataracts

Yesterday I visited my eye clinic again for sweet Dr. Chong to again stick a knife in my eye, this time the left one. This time, unlike with the right eye, I experienced a little pain, but nothing unbearable. And in what seemed like no time at all, Rosalie picked me up at the discharge door and drove me home, eye guard in place like a modern-day Captain Kidd.

This morning, after I took off the eye guard, the world looked bright and white and clear. On the drive to my post-op with Dr. Chong, I was able to read all the road signs, even the ones way down the road. Wonderful. After another measurement Dr. Chong told me that both eyes were now 20-30, which for an old guy like me is pretty good. She said I’d be able to get along with a cheapie pair of glasses, 2.5 magnification for reading, 1.5 magnification for working at the computer, and nothing for the rest of my visual world. That means I’ll be able to throw away the glasses I’ve been stuck with for the past sixty years. I’ll again be able to see a golf ball in flight and in landing. And now that I don’t hit the ball as far as I once did, I’ll be able to see where it lands even easier than in the past. Wonderful. Now if science and technology and medicine would just hurry up and find a way to replace the entire body, I could be a new man and live to be a thousand. Whoa! I don’t think I’d WANT to live to be a thousand. But I’d sure settle for two or three hundred.

This seems like an appropriate place for a Senior Citizen joke:
At a local coffee shop, a group of seniors were sitting around talking about all their ailments.
"My arms have gotten so weak I can hardly lift this cup of coffee," said one.
"Yes, I know," said another. "My cataracts are so bad; I can't even see my coffee."
"I couldn't even mark an "X" at election time, my hands are so crippled," volunteered a third.
"What? Speak up! What? I can't hear you!’ said one elderly lady.
"I can't turn my head because of the arthritis in my neck," said one, to which several nodded weakly in agreement.
"My blood pressure pills make me so dizzy!" exclaimed another.
"I forget where I am, and where I'm going," said another.
"I guess that's the price we pay for getting old," winced an old man as he slowly shook his head.
The others nodded in agreement.
"Well, count your Blessings," said a woman cheerfully. "Thank God we can all still drive."