Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
Ever get one of those earworms, a song that plays over and over in your head for a long period of time? Johnny Nash had a hit song back in 1972 and it’s not leaving me alone. It goes like this; “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day.”
I’m in between surgeries for new and improved eyes by getting new lens implants. It sounds very scary. They cut my eye open and remove the cataracts and replace them with the implants; all while I am awake.
I am far from being a tough guy who can handle such things without some kind of drugs or something, which they do provide. I get to heal my eye for a couple of weeks before they do the other one. I am facing the second surgery tomorrow. By the time you are reading this, I will be in the recovery stage of the last one.
Many of my friends and family have been through this and every one of them reassured me that I would be just fine and would wish I had done it earlier. Nevertheless, I was not looking forward to the experience. Now that it is behind me, I can honestly say that they were correct in telling me it was a piece of cake.
I go under the knife in the morning, and I have no fear of getting this done; I will join them in saying it is nothing to fear and the results are amazing. I can now see out of my right eye and can get around without my glasses. I still can’t see out of the left eye but that will be taken care of tomorrow. It’s a little strange wearing my glasses with one of the lenses removed but it’s not very noticeable unless I walk outside where my transition lenses turn into sunglasses. Then I just look like a fool (something I am used to).
My optician thinks I will probably have 20/22 vision and would only require reading glasses. I’ve been wearing glasses for about 50 years now and don’t mind having to wear them. I especially like the transition lenses because I like being able to walk outside or inside without even thinking about glare or darkness. I’m gonna miss that part of it if I only need reading glasses. I’m hoping that I will need a small prescription so I can continue to wear transition lenses. But It will be worth it to be able to see better and I can adjust to not wearing glasses the same way I adjusted to wearing them.
I confess that it is wonderful to see again and it’s not just the clarity, but people told me that colors will be more vibrant and I can verify that they were all correct about that one. Carlene and I went to a new restaurant to celebrate our 26th anniversary. I posted a picture on Facebook and wasn’t wearing my glasses. My old friend Jim Gulley responded with “I can see clearly now!” I got a big kick out of that because that song has been worming through my brain for about two weeks now. I must admit that I do not mind that at all because it is so true and so wonderful to be able to see clearly now. Thanks Johnny Nash for the song. It’s a wonderful thing…
