2013—Cataract: Right Eye

As a surgery, I suppose this intervention qualifies for a brown header-line, but it was so benign and non-intrusive that I actually complained of that aspect of the experience. It still seems to me that anything that brings a sharp instrument into contact with my eyeball is a big deal and should not be approached with ho-hum nonchalance. Even highly-competent, professional, ho-hum nonchalance.
Hess
Dr Christian L Hess
Valerie was out of town. Another indication, of course, that nobody saw this surgery as a big deal. Bob Whitney, my great friend and home teaching companion, graciously drove me to the ambulatory-surgery facility at the Davis Hospital, in the morning. Doctor Christian Hess performed the procedure, slapped an eye-patch on the site, handed me a few prescriptions for fancy, expensive eyedrops, and released me. Bob returned that afternoon, bless him, and drove me home.
That eye had required correction from glasses or contact lenses since junior high school. I have a vague recollection that at least one eye test had declared me legally blind, when uncorrected, on that side. Since then, I’ve had a pair of glasses for reading and another for the many hours I spend squinting at a computer screen, mainly so I can see the dashboard instruments and my keyboard more clearly. But my driver’s license doesn’t require that I wear anything corrective, the little plastic lens that Dr Hess slipped in behind my cornea doing the job splendidly, thank you.

Dr Hess said he’d been watching cataracts grow in both eyes, over the years, and that the left one would be ripe, in some coming year.

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