4-29-02, Voice in the Crowd
New Eyes, New World
By Pete Chaney
IPS Features
The other night I watched television—without wearing my eyeglasses. Now that may not seem like much to most people, but it was to me. I had always worn glasses to watch TV, see a movie or drive a car. They didn’t have TV around in every home when I started wearing glasses.
I was a sophomore in high school and realized I needed
glasses when I couldn’t recognize a friend across the room.
An insatiable appetite for reading left me nearsighted.
Comic books followed by Tarzan, Zane Gray, Dumas and about any book I
could get my eager hands on were food for my interest.
When the lights became dim as darkness came on, I stayed with the printed
words into the twilight. I paid the
price with glasses. It was tough
trying to play sports with glasses. I
got used to it.
In time came the bifocals, which I could never get used
to. In more recent years, it became
increasingly difficult for me to drive at night. It was hard to see street signs in dim light and the bright
headlights of cars blinded me. Losing
my night vision, I told myself.
Every few years I got stronger glasses.
Dr. Bill Findley said I needed to have my eyes examined and sent me to
Dr. Elizabeth Mabry. She saw nothing alarming and gave me a prescription for
stronger glasses. The optometrist
at Pearle Vision said he detected cataracts but it was not serious—yet.
That was several years ago.
It became more difficult to use the computer and I
decided I needed computer glasses for that range. I went to Eyear Optical where the optometrist said my
cataracts were so bad she couldn’t even get a reading on my vision.
You won’t be able to pass an eye exam for a driver’s license, she
said.
I went back to see Dr. Mabry—to think about correcting
my vision. Friends said laser
surgery was the thing. She agreed
the cataracts had to attended to, and explained the operation procedure.
There was no laser available for cataract surgery she said, and told me I
would be given enough medication to relax during the operation.
The very idea of someone sticking a needle in my eyeball
was horrendous. I won’t even open
my eyes after a shower until I dry my eyes.
Several friends told me they had cataracts removed with laser surgery.
I knew Dr. Pe Than Tin’s advertised for laser surgery.
My friend Joe Cheek had used him often when his workers got metal in
their eyes from the machine shop. I
made an appointment and went to see him.
There is no procedure yet for removal of cataracts
through lasers, he told me. But he
did not leave any stitches. They
made me an appointment at Erlanger for the procedure.
I cancelled it, still wanting to find someone with lasers.
My friend Bart Crattie said his mother had it done and
it was easy.
“Yes, it is easy for someone else, but it’s not easy
for me and my eyes,” I said, the very thought chilling me.
I went back to Dr. Tin and they set up another date at
Erlanger. They almost lost me again
when Dr. Tin’s nurse had me watch a video of the procedure.
The viedo said cataracts made it look as if you saw everything through
wax paper—which it did. The narrator showed a drawing of an eye ball and said an
eighth of an inch incision was made in the eye and the cataract removed with a
plastic lens to be inserted.
Knowing friends like Dalton Roberts, Tom “Peanut”
Stanfield and Frank Ray wouldn’t let me rest if I chickened out again, I was
sunk.
The phone call told me to eat or drink nothing after
midnight and report to the Miller Eye Clinic at 7:30 AM for a 9:30 AM operation.
Someone would have to drive me, which Joe did.
After checking in on the third floor, I went down to the
second floor where I was given the latest fashion in a hospital gown and fed a
couple of pills to relax me. In a
quite room, I napped between eye drops, which came often and burned each time.
It was to deaden my eyeball so that I would feel nothing, the nurse
explained.
The old procedure called for sticking a needle into the
eyeball to deaden it. Thank the
Lord for eye drops, I thought. And
my respect for Erlanger’s state of the arts operation and courteous operation
grew. Like most people, I had lost
faith in Erlanger in the Skip Reeder administration.
By now I was reconciled to the surgery.
But I kept thinking about what Joe once told me of an operation to remove
stainless steel from his eye. He
could see the needle coming until it entered his eye.
The thought upset me but it was too late to cancel now.
A bit woozy, I managed to get on the stretcher and they
carted me down to a waiting area where I was one of about a dozen waiting in
line with drapes separating us. More
eye drops. This type I was wired
for sound. And they put an oxygen
apparatus in my nose and an IV in my hand.
More eye drops.
I felt I was beginning to get bedsores when they wheeled
me into the small operating room. Overhead
was some space age looking apparatus, and I got some more eye drops.
When I mentioned that it was still stinging me, they gave me an extra
dose. A plastic-like device was put
over my face with just my eye exposed and they cranked up the oxygen flow.
I complained that it was burning my nose and they cut it down, saying I
wasn’t used to pure oxygen. I
guess I still have some Pall Mall smoke in my lungs after ten months since I put
them down.
I never felt anything touch my eye or my face.
There were brilliant, bright lights with different colors flashing back
and forth. Then they were wheeling
me back to my room and asked if I wanted something for pain.
I settled for a Tylenol. They
gave me a plastic cup to cover the eye to keep me from touching it.
A supply of eye drops to be administered every four hours came along.
I couldn’t believe it was over, this thing I dreaded
for so long. Over the years I had
many experiences—combat situations, threats from my newspaper work, violence
and dangerous. Nothing had bothered
me as much as the thoughts of the eye operation.
It was behind me now.
As my eye adjusted to the light and began healing, I was
stunned to see what I had been missing. Colors
were so beautiful. Reds were red.
Blues were blue. Greens,
green. And if I close my right eye and look through my left eye,
which still has cataracts, it’s like trying to see through a window stained
with a yellowish brown. Everything
is blurred and distorted.
I couldn’t wait to enjoy the world with two eyes
instead of one and made an appointment to have cataract surgery for my left eye.
Dalton volunteered to take me and bring me home.
Very possibly he thinks I may chicken out again.
No way. If the world is
twice as beautiful with two eyes as it is with one, I can’t wait.
-30-