![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've worn glasses since the fifth grade, and I've always been near-sighted. Being an avid reader, this was never a problem: I could take off my glasses and hold my book close and happily read. As I grew older I required progressive lenses, and I adapted to those quite well.
A few years ago, in my early 50s, I had cataract surgery. And boy, did I get screwed. Yesterday, my wife had a cataract exam (hers was not yet ripe enough to have it removed) and we learned a few things, the most important being that I was denied the choice between preserving my nearsightedness. The office made me farsighted, and now I must use reading glasses for doing anything close. And reading glasses suck. They're inferior glass, usually distorted, and frequently chromatically distorted, which is bad for us photographer types.
Aside from reading, not being able to see close has massively screwed up my photography. While it's great being able to see clearly through the viewfinder, not being able to see the controls to make adjustments without reading glasses SUCKS. I finally was able to buy a new pocket Lumix last November that helps: it's a pocket camera with an eye-level finder! Much more usable for composition and adjusting exposure settings.
On top of that, either I have a super abundance of pain receptors in my eyes, or the anesthetic drops that they used on me were 100% ineffective. They had to do three procedures on my two eyes and it was effectively without anesthetic. I have a high pain tolerance, recently had to have two stitches in my thumb without anesthetic and went through that OK, but these eye procedures were a new experience in pain. And they totally ignored my repeatedly saying that this really hurts.
Needless to say that my wife's exam was NOT with the doctor that I went to. That guy is running a cataract surgery mill and is probably minting money, he's also been practicing for about as long as I've been married, and just over a decade ain't all that long in my book for a medical practice.
A few years ago, in my early 50s, I had cataract surgery. And boy, did I get screwed. Yesterday, my wife had a cataract exam (hers was not yet ripe enough to have it removed) and we learned a few things, the most important being that I was denied the choice between preserving my nearsightedness. The office made me farsighted, and now I must use reading glasses for doing anything close. And reading glasses suck. They're inferior glass, usually distorted, and frequently chromatically distorted, which is bad for us photographer types.
Aside from reading, not being able to see close has massively screwed up my photography. While it's great being able to see clearly through the viewfinder, not being able to see the controls to make adjustments without reading glasses SUCKS. I finally was able to buy a new pocket Lumix last November that helps: it's a pocket camera with an eye-level finder! Much more usable for composition and adjusting exposure settings.
On top of that, either I have a super abundance of pain receptors in my eyes, or the anesthetic drops that they used on me were 100% ineffective. They had to do three procedures on my two eyes and it was effectively without anesthetic. I have a high pain tolerance, recently had to have two stitches in my thumb without anesthetic and went through that OK, but these eye procedures were a new experience in pain. And they totally ignored my repeatedly saying that this really hurts.
Needless to say that my wife's exam was NOT with the doctor that I went to. That guy is running a cataract surgery mill and is probably minting money, he's also been practicing for about as long as I've been married, and just over a decade ain't all that long in my book for a medical practice.
