SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 16

SHARE YOUR WORLD – 2016 WEEK 16

If you had to have your vision corrected would you rather: glasses or contacts? Or what do you use if you need to have your vision corrected?

As a young adult I had no vision problems. It wasn’t until I hit about 45 that I began to need glasses for reading. I did not take well to that change. Eventually I needed a slight correction in my distance vision as well as progressively more correction for reading.

Then last fall I went to the eye doctor for what I thought was another necessary correction for reading. I was flabbergasted when the doctor said, “We can’t correct your vision with glasses any more. You need cataract surgery.”

What???? I thought people got cataract surgery in their 80s, not in their 60s. But I decided to have the surgery, and I’m so glad that I did. After I had the first eye done, I would alternately close one eye and look through the other, and I couldn’t get over the difference. I can illustrate the difference with a couple of photographs I took on a recent cruise. The bedspread was white, and every day the room steward would make an animal out of white towels. Here are two photos, one taken without flash and one with:

After my first cataract surgery, the corrected eye saw like the photo with flash, while the other eye saw everything like the photo without flash. I was truly amazed by the difference and couldn’t wait to get my other eye corrected about a month after the first.

One nice thing about cataract surgery is that the new, implanted lens corrects your distance vision to 20/20. I still need some correction for reading, but the amount of correction is nowhere near as drastic as before the surgery. I can now use reading glasses from the drugstore.

But the biggest difference since the cataract surgery is in how much brighter the world is. I didn’t realize how much colors had dimmed until I had the first surgery done. Both surgeries went very well, and I’m more than glad that I had them done.

If you had to describe your day as a traffic sign, what would it be?

This isn’t a traffic sign, but it does describe something I try to tell myself about life every day:

Was school easy or difficult for you? How so?

Grammar school and most of high school were pretty easy for me. I had to study, but I was able to learn things easily. I didn’t come up against something that I couldn’t handle until calculus in my last year of high school, which I dropped early on.

I’m glad I’m not in high school right now. I’m fairly certain quantum physics would also do me in.

Would you rather take a 1 or 2 week vacation with an organized tour or take a cruise of your choice?

I think of a cruise as an organized tour, and cruises have become our first choice. In 2014 we took a group tour of Ireland that had us repacking our suitcases early just about every morning to move on to the next destination. It was a wonderful trip, and we got to see a lot of different places, but I like a cruise because once you’ve unpacked in your room, the hotel moves with you. You can’t see everything this way, but you can see a lot without having to repack.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I know you’re all probably sick of hearing this, but last week was a great one, and I hope for more of the same this week (And we’ve just signed up for a European cruise in the fall.)

I hope everyone has a great week.

© 2016 by Mary Daniels Brown