Once upon a December, just over two years ago, I went to work one Monday morning and was shocked at a disorienting sensation of blurriness when looking at my bright computer monitor. My right eye wasn’t focusing properly on the text, while my left eye was working just fine.

I did a few quick searches for sudden blurriness in one eye and was suitably frightened – which is only to be expected when diagnosing yourself online. So I rushed to an optometrist to get a check up.

My last eye exam was during high school, and I never needed glasses or had any known problems except for a lazy eye – which, to this day I still can’t confidently identify – and a slow response relaxing from focusing up close to seeing clearly again at distance.

They ruled out obvious issues and gave me a mild, optional prescription. I could wear the glasses for driving at night, but didn’t really need them. When they arrived, though, I figured I might as well try wearing them full-time (outside the house) for the fun of it.

I realized that I liked the feel of wearing glasses, for much the same reason I like my long hair. It was a change, a separation from my past. But it also had a comfort to it, like wearing long sleeves or a cozy blanket. It was a very subtle mask between me and the outside world, but one that didn’t act to separate anything.

I’m not sure about my memory here, but at least in the beginning I felt like the bluriness went away after wearing the glasses for a few weeks. So I was doubly happy with them. I’d wear them outside, then take them off at home where they’d be more obstructive to lazing around.

Before the year had passed, though, I noticed that the bluriness would come and go. When I had my next exam (in January 2024) I expected them to find something, but they still couldn’t. My prescription ended up only slightly modified and I updated my lenses but kept the frames.

I spent this last year trying to gather evidence. I eventually decided that the bluriness was now constant, but clearly depended on the level of ambient light. I once noticed that I could indeed focus on a bright screen of text, but only at a very specific distance, which turned out to not be consistent.

One day at work I stopped silently suffering and switched everything over to dark mode. I also lowered the nearby blinds since it was impossible to see the top right corner of my monitor if the window behind it wasn’t covered. I grudgingly awaited the arrival of the new year when insurance would let me get another covered exam.

When 2025 arrived, I thought to try a different optometrist, and I’m glad I did. This clinic had two very fancy machines. The first one did a digital retina image, no big deal. But the second one validated my pent up frustration.

This second machine supposedly had the magical power of automatically determining someone’s prescription. After sitting still and watching the pretty farmhouse image go in and out of focus several times, the technician running the test voiced her confusion. The machine wasn’t doing its job properly, and I happily confessed that this is essentially what I hoped would happen. A digital machine was agreeing that my eye wasn’t normal. Halelujah.

She brought in a second opinion and they checked that, sure enough the machine understood my left eye just fine. Neither of them knew why, so they moved me on to the exam room.

Apart from the fancy machines, this is where the different clinic really shined. When the optometrist came in I had a legitimately fun time with the exam. My right eye was completely busted, barely able to recognize that there was text at all, let alone read any of it, but we laughed about the experience and I was loudly honest about my guesses.

After the exam, she said that my prescription didn’t turn out to be very different from before, which was briefly heartbreaking. But then she said, “and I know why. I’ve known since I saw the first picture, but didn’t want that to effect your answers.”

She brought up the images from the first machine and showed me the cataracts in the right eye, dead center and blocking my ability to see detail. I looked up an opthamologist and had her send in a referral.

Two days ago (February 2025) I met with the opthamologist. They took similar images, but some were much fancier, and gave me another eye exam (but less pressure since it was only to see how bad things were, not to produce an actual prescription). He explained how the surgery would go and let me ask questions. After getting home I spent much of the day researching things and actually internalizing much of the possibilities.

At this point, I think I know which lens I’ll get, but the timing of the surgery depends on his response to some questions I sent in over email. I wanted to write up this post as the first in a series chronicling this major event, before and after. I want to capture the way things appear now and compare it with how the world looks through new eyes.

Honorable Mention: I made a really funny joke earlier today. The opthamologist is very attractive, much younger than I expected, and I whipped up the tragically cheesy line: “I’m just happy that the last thing I see with my natural eyes will be your face.” I hope he never finds this blog.

The hardest part of this weekend has been realizing that I have to accept and grieve a bit. My eyes – yes, both of them – are failing, and there’s no perfect replacement. No matter what I choose, I can’t continue to see the same way, and it’ll never come back. It’s good that this is such a common and straightforward procedure, but I’m younger than the normal patient.

I want to travel. I want to see many countries, walk unfamiliar city streets, and see all the beautiful variety there is in humankind. Right now, daylight is uncomfortable because half of my vision shuts down. So were I to visit a beautiful sight, I could only enjoy part of it and would constantly be fidgeting with my biology. But it’s a known discomfort.

I’m young, I don’t want to be forced to settle for something permanent that I can’t try out or fully understand ahead of time. Everyone’s experience with artificial lenses is different, so it’s impossible to be certain about what I will see on the other side.

I looked into how multifocal lenses work, and the technology is incredible. I’m excited by the novelty, and how I essentially get to lock in reasonable quality eyesight for the rest of my life, like a fixed rate mortgage (and while my insurance is amazing). But it’s still sad that I can’t continue in vigorous health.

So I’ll take some snapshots of the world through these broken eyes before bravely charging forward.