Seeing Clearly

SEEING CLEARLY

Rollie lay on the gurney, a thin white hospital blanket over his body.

“Coooollld,” he stammered, his lips wanting to stick together and his tongue dry.

“Ah, you are waking up Mr. Thrush,” the recovery room nurse said as she walked to his side; “How are we feeling? You need another blanket?"

Rollie tried to answer ‘yes’, but it came out ‘yeth, puflese.'

“Here ya go, Mr. Thrush. A tiny bit of water for that dry mouth?”

Rollie tried to answer, but this time nothing came out so he merely nodded.

The nurse smiled, “Don’t worry, most of my patients have the same problem after having cataract surgery on the first eye. You’ll be up and walking out of here in just a few minutes.” She unfolded another white blanket and flipped it expertly over his body with the first attempt, tucked it under him, then lifted up the blanket to look at his feet. “Can you wiggle your toes yet?”

Rollie tried to wiggle, but far as he could tell, he had no toes, not even any feet.

Soothingly the nurse said, “Not to worry, Mr. Thrush, we had to give you a little sedative but it’ll wear off in a few minutes. Now, let me get you that water.”

The nurse was right, ten minutes later Rollie could wiggle and in 20 minutes he had been checked over by the surgeon, given a pair of very dark sun glasses, put into a wheelchair, wheeled out to the family car and was being driven home by his wife Mildred.

“I can’t see a thing with the new lens implant,” he told her as he lifted the patch from the “new” eye, “and my other eye is all blurry.”

“The doctor said that is what would happen. You have to wear that patch for the rest of the day before you can see how the new eye works.”

“Well, I want to go home and go straight to bed. Even with these dark glasses the sun is way too bright and I’ve got a headache.”

---

Two hours later Rollie woke up. Despite it being almost 2 pm the bedroom was dark due to the shade being pulled down tightly. He got up, still wearing the pjs he had worn to the surgery, and opened the door to the family room where his wife was sitting, playing solitaire on the notebook.

“Eyyyeeee!” He said as the 40-watt light from the lamp next to the notebook hit his eye, “too bright!” He turned back into the bedroom, found the dark glasses and put them on before returning to the family room.

Mildred had turned away from the computer and looked at him, “You OK, hon?”

“Yeah, it’s just really bright in here. I know it’s because my eyes were dilated for the surgery but I don’t need any more headaches.”

“Then you are feeling OK?”

“Headache is gone, vision is just a little blurry in the old eye, but I’m wrung out and tired.”

“Hungry?”

“Yeah, could you make me some hot Top Ramen?”

“Ha, you and your Top Ramen. I don’t know how you can eat that stuff. Sure, I’ll make you some. Why don’t you just sit down on the couch and rest?”

Rollie no sooner had slurped down the Top Ramen (he had to suck the noodles up because Mildred hadn’t broken them up the way he liked) when he announced he was heading back to bed. Mildred followed him into the spare room and tucked him in, stuffing the blankets under the mattress as she always did.

“Not too tight honey, I need to breathe,” he said smiling.

“OK, go to sleep. I’m going to make me a salad, play some more sol and then watch my two game shows and go to bed myself. See you in the morning but yell if you need me.”

---

Rollie woke up and went to the bathroom about 2 am as usual, then was back in bed and sleeping again. He woke up again at 5 am, headache completely gone and felt great, even though the eyepatch was uncomfortable. He showered, put on shorts and a tee shirt, left the sunglasses on the nightstand and went into the kitchen where he made some instant coffee. He sat at the table and began drinking it quickly as he usually did the first cup of the day.

He mumbled almost inaudibly, “OK let’s take this patch off and see how the world looks with a clear eyeball lens.”

“Woah, I can see clearly all the way across the room. 55 years of being near sighted and now I won’t have to wear glasses to drive…Great.” He picked up the morning newspaper on the table, closed his old eye and found out the new eye, as the doctor had warned, couldn’t focus on it. He looked at the calendar on the wall and it was in focus, but anything closer than about 5 or 6 feet was blurred. “OK, so I’ll have to have reading glasses now,” he mumbled to himself.

He looked around the room. “Hmm, the walls look different somehow.” Then he looked at the yellow ceiling of the living room and recoiled, “OMG, it’s WHITE, the damn ceiling is WHITE, not the off-white yellow I thought it was!”

Rollie walked into the bathroom. That ceiling had magically changed from a deep, dark blue to a pale robin’s egg/sky blue. “Geeze, LIGHT blue. I was sure that was more of a royal blue.”

He went back into the bedroom and looked at that ceiling. Same thing, white, not yellow.

Then he looked at the ugly brown bedspread his wife insisted on keeping on the spare bed.

“Lordy, the sucker is PURPLE! And it’s a pretty purple. What happened to the ugly brown?”

This is great! I didn’t know the cataracts changed the way I saw colors, but wow. Now I can’t wait to get the other eyeball modernized!



996 Words