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<\/a><\/p>\nYesterday I couldn\u2019t see much of anything with my left eye\u2026<\/p>\n
and today, I can\u2026<\/p>\n
but\u2026<\/p>\n
oh those but\u2019s<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve been \u201clegally blind\u201d in my left eye since the Russians launched Sputnik.\u00a0 I could see vague shapes, shadows, colors and that\u2019s all. \u00a0Forget the eye chart. \u00a0Couldn\u2019t even see the big \u2018E\u2019 much less anything else. Like your <\/em>face.<\/p>\n I had a point of focus though\u2014about a quarter of an inch from my eyeball where I could read a blurry word or two.\u00a0 Fortunately my right eye is okay but you can imagine that the very notion of depth perception is a running joke in my life.<\/p>\n Flash forward to a January visit to The DMV when they insisted I return later this year to test all over again \u201cbecause we want to see you,\u201d said the nice lady with the clipboard. \u201cWhy is that,\u201d I chirped, considering my driving record has been stellar for the last twenty years.\u00a0 (Everyone knock on wood, would ya).\u00a0 \u201cWell you are legally blind in one eye and have a cataract\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n It just so happens that THE CATARACT of concern is in my legally blind eye so I\u2019ve been postponing the surgery because, hey, I can\u2019t see much anyway.\u00a0 But the cataract was getting really bad. So yesterday I finally land on a cushy highchair that will soon unfold into a surgical gurney.\u00a0 The chair and I are in a long row of patient \u00a0\u201cpods\u201d at The Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and the pre-op begins.\u00a0 I am comforted that this place has a gold medal reputation and my husband and I have good insurance.<\/p>\n The staff is kind and attentive.\u00a0 As I am leaving the gender-neutral bathroom one nurse points out the obvious–that toilet paper is stuck to my hospital gown and I\u2019m dragging it down the corridor. You know, it\u2019s the little things you remember<\/em>.<\/p>\n The doc stops by to reassure me and explain that the back of my retina is very big and misshapen so there is only one mono lens she can use in the procedure and I\u2019m thinking\u2026can you give me the anti-anxiety drugs NOW?<\/em><\/p>\n And then it\u2019s show time as they push me and my Barcalounger to the operating room. \u00a0Even though the nurse anesthetist is by my side, I am NOT asleep but rather seeing lights flash and feeling pressure and tugging on my eyeball.\u00a0 But thankfully, there is no pain.<\/p>\n And suddenly it\u2019s done.\u00a0 They wheel me back to my \u201cpod,\u201d unhook the telemetry, IV and send me packing with a parting gift: \u00a0An arachnid-looking eyepatch that remains in place until I return 17 hours later for a quick post-op visit with my doc.<\/p>\n And The Big Reveal!<\/p>\n A tech guy removes the eye patch and instructs me to \u201clook around\u201d as he closes the door behind him.<\/p>\n Oh my God, it\u2019s so bright in here. The computer screens glow neon like the Las Vegas Strip. There is an LED screen eye chart and I can actually see four fuzzy letters. Believe me, this is a big deal. I recognize my husband who is sitting in a nearby chair.\u00a0 I see his beautiful blurry face.\u00a0 This is a big deal.\u00a0 I extend my arms in front of me and the tips of my fingers mark my new point of focus. From yesterday to today, it goes from a quarter inch to about two feet away.<\/p>\n But my right eye, my dominant eye, is talking to me now and saying, \u201cWAIT A MINUTE. \u00a0WTF IS HAPPENING HERE?\u201d\u00a0 And now my left eye is chiming in as I stare at the vertical edge of the office door, \u00a0It’s wavy. \u00a0I close my dominant eye and spin in place, gazing east, west, north, south and see soft wavy vertical lines. \u00a0Everywhere.<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s my brain\u2019s turn to say \u201cWTF! \u00a0WTF!\u201d\u00a0 When the doc walks in I quickly announce \u201cthis is a mixed bag\u201d<\/em> and describe the Alice in Wonderland<\/em> experience I am having right now.<\/p>\n “But maybe it\u2019s been this way all along? I was too blind to see it?”<\/strong><\/p>\n She nods in agreement and shows me a picture of my retina on the computer screen. It looks like a gall bladder instead of a nice round eye.\u00a0 Kind of long and dippy. \u00a0I\u2019ve seen the image before, over the years, but right now I\u2019m really eye-balling it<\/em>\u2014from the inside out. \u00a0By the way, the fancy name for all this commotion is metamorphopsia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Did you know the retina sees images upside down but the brain turns them right side up? Yay brain!!!\u00a0 My doc says this visual disconnect between my right and left eye will get better with time as the brain works its magic. \u00a0But the waves…they are here to stay.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t like something, change it. \u00a0If you can\u2019t change it, change your attitude,\u201d so says Maya Angelou.<\/p>\n Which brings me to my experience with time<\/em>: \u00a0I have floaters in both eyes. They have driven me crazy. Laser surgery helped until I got more floaters. \u00a0For years it was \u201cOh-My-God-This-Is-Awful.\u201d<\/em> \u00a0Then one day I realized I wasn\u2019t saying that anymore. \u00a0It\u2019s not like those pesky clouds and slithery worms went away. They just became irrelevant. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Everybody has something, maybe lots of \u201csomethings.\u201d\u00a0 Our miraculous animal bodies are doing the best they can. \u00a0So \u201cthank you.\u201d\u00a0 Thank you for this wild, wavy ride.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well hello everybody and I sure have missed writing and sharing my missives with you. The music thing is grabbing most of my personal bandwidth these days.\u00a0 But have I got a story to tell: Yesterday I couldn\u2019t see much of anything with my left eye\u2026 and today, I can\u2026 but\u2026 oh those but\u2019s\u2026 I\u2019ve been \u201clegally blind\u201d in my left eye since the Russians launched Sputnik.\u00a0 I could see vague shapes, shadows, colors and that\u2019s all. … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[245,244,247,246],"class_list":["post-10054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cataract-surgery","tag-cataracts","tag-metamorphopsia","tag-seeing-vertical-waves"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"},{"value":1,"label":"Uncategorized"}],"post_tag":[{"value":245,"label":"cataract surgery"},{"value":244,"label":"cataracts"},{"value":247,"label":"metamorphopsia"},{"value":246,"label":"seeing vertical waves"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Cali-at-Jules-Stein-819x1024.jpeg",819,1024,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":900,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":138,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":138,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0},{"term_id":1,"name":"Uncategorized","slug":"uncategorized","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":1,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Uncategorized","category_nicename":"uncategorized","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":245,"name":"cataract surgery","slug":"cataract-surgery","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":245,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":244,"name":"cataracts","slug":"cataracts","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":244,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":247,"name":"metamorphopsia","slug":"metamorphopsia","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":247,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":246,"name":"seeing vertical waves","slug":"seeing-vertical-waves","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":246,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10054"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10110,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10054\/revisions\/10110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n