The dictionary defines a cataract is a clouding of the lens of the eye. This is all well and true.
My parents didn't figure out that I had a cataract until I was about 2 years old.
This is the youngest picture of myself I could find, and my cataract was in my right eye. You can see a tad bit of cloudiness, but I understand the flash is there as well.
I had corrective surgery when I was 4, receiving a donor lens. The lens did not work, but changed my eye color. (I have one blue eye and one green eye naturally. I was born with blue eyes.) My eye color changed probably when I was about 9.
When I was 8 years old, I was instructed to wear a patch. The goal was to cover up my good eye with a patch, leaving me to see (nothing) with the other one. I hated every minute of this. I remember peeling back the inside, then "peeking" as my mom would say. She'd yell, "No peeking!" and I'd have to close the patch back against my skin. I would sit on my rocking horse and rock for the amount of time I had to be in that patch.
Everything was fine until I turned 16, and was able to drive.
I will never forget the idiot woman at the DMV. I had already attended my drivers ed classes, passed, been driving for a few months, and was there to take my picture!
She has me do the eye test, so she has me read the first line. Alright, I can do that. Now, what they dont tell you, is why you are saying the letters, they switch it over to the other eye. So my screen goes black, and I looked at this woman and said, "Oh you are going to have to switch it back. I can't see out of this eye, and I'll just read a few more lines." Thinking that would be okay.
OH NO. You'd have thought this woman had seen a ghost.
A girl, who can't see out of an eye? She had never heard of such thing!!!!
Asks me to go to a eye doctor, and get him to write down that I can not see out of said eye.
So I was pissed. I hadn't been to an eye doctor in YEARS, and I'm running around town trying to find an eye doctor who can simply just write "Blind in right eye."
I ended up going to the mall (16 year old thought process, haha), and went to the LensCrafters. I explained the situation, showed him my pretty 'I have a donor lens" card, and he agreed to help me out.
He "eye tested" both of my eyes, and wrote whatever this lady needed down.
I go back to the DMV. Same lady. I get up there and she wants me to take the eye test AGAIN.
Exact same thing. "Ma'am, can you switch it back...etc."
So, before she starts in on she needs a doctors note, i wave this stupid piece of paper and my state hospital issued card.
"Please read the bottom line."
It's the tiniest line of letters, but I read it. I have IMPECCABLE vision, superhuman even, in my left eye. "My Superman eye." my mom calls it.
Finally, I got the damn picture taken. Beautiful perfect picture!
___
During High School, classmates actually made fun of me because I had two different eye colors. I even wore contacts to make them the same color. They would say I didn't really have a cataract, only old people have cataracts, whatever you can think of, they said it.
Everyone knew I couldn't see out of the eye, some people probably thought it was a fake or glass eye.
Nope, all my eye people. Just a dead dudes LENS. That's "inside" the eye. See, if you would have paid attention in school.... you'd know this :)
I took this picture right out of high school, and it is one of the few (pictures) that actually shows the color difference. Most people don't know I'm legally blind in my right eye. When I tell them it's always, "Oh Yeah now I see the color difference!"
I did brighten the color up just a tad in the picture.
Also, a cool tid-bit about my cataract.... my eyes are always dilated differently. Right one is smaller than the left one. Always will be.
And that's my fun story of my cataract!
No comments:
Post a Comment