For the last 8 years, whenever I had my eyes checked for the prescription for my glasses, my eye doctor has been telling me that cataracts in my eyes were there and starting to get worse. About 2 years ago he said that the cataracts were changing enough that I might have to update the prescription every 6 months. Now that gets expensive. When I went for an eye exam last winter because my vision was blurry, my doctor said it was time to send me to the eye surgeon—almost.
My eyes have always been dry, so he said I needed to work on that problem before the surgery. First I spent a couple of months using the prescription eye drops Restasis. Second I used eye pads that I heat in the microwave and put over my eyes for 10 minutes twice a day.
After a couple of months of this eye help while we were on the road taking our “quick trips,” I went back to my eye doctor, and he said I could make the appointment. Yahoo! Fortunately the surgeon had an opening for evaluation before our trip to Raleigh. At the end of the 2-hours in the office, we made appointments for surgery on June 17 (right eye) and July 1 (left eye), and I picked up the eye drops I’d start using 2 days before each surgery to help with inflammation and infection.
At the eye surgeon’s appointment, we learned about the different lenses that he could use and what each cost. Since I’ve been having to use these 4 pairs of glasses for a number of years, I’m ready to say good-bye to all of them.
bottom row, left to right: everyday bifocals that you’ve seen in most of our pictures, and computer glasses for shorter distances
Since we’ve been thinking about my needing this procedure for a number of years, we’ve been saving the money so I could have the top-of-the-line surgery that would help with both distance and closeup vision, as well as with astigmatism that causes blurriness.
After the first surgery, I was able to come home right away with my eye covered for almost 24 hours.
After each surgery, we were told to schedule the following appointments with my eye doctor: 1 day after, 1 week after, and 1 month after. Since the 2 eye surgeries were scheduled 2 weeks apart, I’ll be seeing my eye doctor for 6 appointments over 6 weeks. Luckily he is close by!
After the first appointment, we started working with the staff to find a new pair of nice sunglasses for me. Here’s what I found the first time we looked.
choice A 
choice B
A week later we looked at these frames.
choice D 
choice E
Which frame do you vote for? After talking with a number of friends and family members, I’ll show you our final choice.
After our first appointment, we went out for breakfast at our favorite place, J. Christopher’s, I wore one of Barney’s sunglasses to protect my eyes against the sun.
As the healing time progressed, the blurriness hasn’t gone away completely, so my eye doctor said I may need some additional laser work for the astigmatism. He wants me to wait until early September to see the eye surgeon so my eyes really have time to settle in after the surgery. Obviously I already have the appointment made for September 8.
To help with the blurriness, especially when I’m reading on the computer, or watching TV, I’ve started using some readers that really help.
Finally we made our choice of sunglasses for me.
Thanks to Dr. Alexander and his wonderful staff at Windward Eye Care in Alpharetta for all their attention and care when we were in the shop!
We thought this would be the end of the story of cataract surgery, but it isn’t. My vision is still a little blurry so I’ll have to see my eye surgeon again in a month to get his recommendation about my next steps.
