I had my “Hallelujah” moment this morning following cataract surgery on my right (and dominant) eyes yesterday. I awoke, got out of bed, and took off the eye shield that had protected my right eye during the night. The first thing I noticed was that vision in that eye was sharp and clear. The second thing is that I was seeing a different world.
It’s like an oil painting rescued from a smoker’s home. If you’ve every done this, you know that colors, and most noticeably the whites, become covered with a thin layer of yellow-brown film from tobacco smoke. That shifts the colors dramatically, and usually requires extensive cleaning of the painting to restore the original colors.
Yesterday’s cataract removal provided the same cleaning of everything I’m looking at. Whites are actually white, not a yellowish cream color. I’m seeing the colors of our house for the first time. I even had to seek out each of our cats to reassess their colors!
Looking across the yard at a plant that has variegated and green leaves. If I close the eye that had the cataract removed, and look only through the other uncorrected eye, the leaves appear yellow and green. Close that eye, open the cataract-free eye, and they are bright white and green. A dramatic difference that I’m gleefully recreating everywhere I look this morning.
[reposted from Facebook]
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Well tomorrow morning is my first appointment for the evaluation. I forgot to mention I’m going to the same eye doctors you are using.
Wonderful news!
Will you edit photographs with the corrected or uncorrected eye during the interim period?
So happy for you Ian! I went through the same epiphany a few years ago. Soon its time for the other eye. Can you visualize the years when such remarkable surgery was simply not available?
I had furniture I thought was teal blue, but when people came in they said “wow”. After cataract surgery I walked in our living room and said “OMG”. I had no idea it was a bright cobalt blue. I got used to it and actually liked it before it wore out. Welcome to colorful world.
Congratulations Ian!
Good news indeed! You can enjoy the holiday lights with renewed clarity!
Ian –
Any reason both eyes couldn’t be done at the same time – assuming both needed to be done?
I would think the risks of botching both would be quite small.