Fading to black...

Fading to black...
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I haven't talked much about this in any specific way but I wanted to because I have no place do it.

I have asthma and once, sometimes twice, a year I end up on steroids... This last time something happened to my vision.

Around the time I was done with with the prednesone, my vision changed. I didn't attribute it to the steroids and didn't call my ophthalmologist for a few weeks.

I wasn't exactly ignoring it... exactly....more like wishing it would go away. But it kept getting worse. In the few weeks I waited I stopped being able to drive at night and stopped being able to read without difficulty. I had worn contacts in the past and it was now like looking at everything from behind a very dirty pair.

When I finally did go (In November) he told me I had cataracts. "Bad cataracts". And my near vision was "just awful". Something he didn't have to tell me because I could no longer read with out holding a magnifying glass over the print.

He said it was a combination of genetics (my father had them at a fairly young age) and the meds I take regularly and the steroids I took semi-regularly. I guess that last time pushed me over the edge....

He told me to come back in February to see how they were progressing but he thought being an artist I wouldn't be able to tolerate them very long.

I went back in December because it seemed to be getting even worse. Driving during the day was even getting difficult. Photography was getting very difficult and I switched to painting simply because it was larger... And reading had become such a chore I stopped doing it. One of my favorite things to do used to be to go to a bookstore and read. I went one morning, got a stack of books, sat down and realized I couldn't read any of them.

My doctor told me "the cataracts were getting worse by the month". I have an appointment with him next week to schedule the surgery. But because they were getting so bad so fast he sent me to a retina specialist to make sure I wasn't having something else going on. That, at least, went well.

So I'm faced with this surgery. And while many many many people have told me how safe it is... and I know that on an intellectual level... I also know that you sign a consent form for a reason. And that things happen. And also my sight will not be the same as it was before. My near vision will require glasses which it didn't only a few months ago. And near vision with glasses is not the same as near vision without glasses...

So while chances are that things will go well there is this nagging feeling and fear that my eyesight will not be the same as it was only a few months ago. And if it's not the same how will the difference effect what I see....and what I can do? Or not do?