What is this 'distance' of which you speak?

[shewhomust]

I spent much of this morning with a charming young man gazing deep into my eyes. This would have been a pleasanter experience if he had not been using a powerful torch.

The good news is that the recent deterioration in my sight is indeed caused by cataracts, and that other than that things are stable. So that's something which can, in time, be cured, by an operation which (apart from my squeamishness about eyes) is pretty minor.

Once this has been done, the optician assures me, I will be pleasantly surprised by crystal-clear distance vision. I'm sure he's right - I am, after all, constantly delighted by details in my photographs which I had not seen in the reality - but since I have never had much in the way of distance vision, I've never missed it.

On the other hand, I already have problems seeing my computer screen (the war on typos is not going well), and the optician argued that new glasses would be too temporary a cure to be worthwhile. So he will refer me to 'the consultant' and in due course we shall see what the consultant says (which may be "not yet").

Comments

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

A promising start!
But young men ought not to use torches at looking deep into female eyes, it isn´t nice and not at all how this is done, I hope you told him that in no uncertain words? Though, if all this leads to you having ladyhawk´s eyes we may profit from it through more wonderful travel stories and ditto pictures from one of my fav. sources.
If so I shall think more fondly of the youngster in case!
Though men do make passes at girls who wear glasses, whatever they say. I have had that checked empirically.
I still have hawk´s eyes when it comes to clothesspotting but desperately need my reading glasses. I almost stopped reading for a few years because I got tired from it so fast til my brother suggested I might need glasses which I of course denied hotly. Then I bought some on the market in Provence just for decorational purposes and boy, did they make syllables big!
I had long come to the conclusion that a conspiracy directed toward me personally as a both dilettante and lazy reader had made the bookmongers minimize the text to save money and fool me to buy more books to see if I can read those better which may be true still but nowadays I trick them out with my plastic eyes, reading at my own pace!

[anef.livejournal.com]

I admire your stoicism, but it sounds pretty horrid. I assume you would prefer to have the operation as soon as possible?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

There's likely to be a three month delay until I see the specialist, who may then agree to operate or wait until the cataract is 'ripe' (!). So it may be stoicism, or I may just be in denial, but I'm setting this aside to worry about later.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I had a moment of terror before I remembered what "torch" means to you.

I've heard many good things from people who've had cataract surgery. My mother's one complaint is that her new glasses (bifocals) make it too hard to read in bed.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Separated by a common language again! (Our post-Christmas guest gave me a tutorial on 'holidays' vs. 'vacation', and I think I can get that one right: I just have to pass through French en route...)

And yes, I too know many people who are quite evangelical about cataract surgery, including one who was absolutely terrified beforehand and tried to cure her cataracts with magic eye drops.

Your mother has my sympathy - I passed through that stage, then got reading glasses (as well as my varifocals); wven so, in bed I read without glasses and the book very close to my nose.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Best wishes.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I hope it gets sorted quickly. I hate the losing vision thing.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thanks - but it depends what you mean by 'quickly' (see above). And I was quite scared about the losing vision when I first noticed it; I was very relieved to discover there was a treatable cause.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I wasn't assuming that the operation would be scheduled soon. Too much experience of these things to assume promptness - but once you're operated upon, things will move. Thank goodness. I love treatable things. Especially when they're related to vision.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

I cannot recall ever having seen one single typo done by your hand, either.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Either you are too kind, or you suspect me of writing perfectly typed gibberish!

Your previous comment made me laugh - I hope that was the idea?

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Well, I am certainly not flattering you, I truly can´t remember one but I know the feeling of seeing some in one´s own text, even after publishing;)
And oh,
I was going to message you to say my say in some other, differently chosen words but then I relied on your sublime sense of humour...my idea of it not always being well-placed as I well know; I had hoped very much indeed, you would take it up that way and can only be grateful that it worked and you did, as you say.
In case you do need that operation, I am sure it goes well and will be better afterwards but I know the feeling when it comes to those things, I don´t much like hospitals and the idea of someone fumbling around in my eyes (I have been to the eye-doctor, that was quite enough already;) with sharper things than torches makes me shudder... as another commenter said:
"I admire your stoicism" which is hereby fully seconded.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

::first, tries to remember that 'torch' in Britspeak is not the same as 'torch' in Amerispeak::

::is much relieved::

FWIW, I've never had much by way of distance vision. At least, that's what I think you mean by what I'd call 'nearsighted'.

Here's hoping for a resolution to having better resolution. ;-)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Hee!

And yes, that's what Karen said about the torch; I suppose you'd call my kind of torch a flashlight, but what would I call your kind of torch? (This language gap is wider than I thought!)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

What would you call my kind of torch? I'm not sure. English is a foreign language to me. ;-)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Yet you speak it so well!

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't have to wait too long to see the consultant.

Take care.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I have an appointment next week - this is all moving quite unnervingly fast!