Decluttering My Eyeballs

Warning: if you have a phobia about eyeballs, you probably shouldn’t read this post. Have a complimentary kitten picture, and move along, nothing to see here.

Still with me? On we go.

I didn’t do terribly well with my decluttering in August, and I was hoping things would improve in September. Well, yes and no.

Here’s my list:
one small spray-can of glasses-cleaner
one glasses-cleaning cloth
one glasses case (when I find it, although I may have inadvertently decluttered, i.e. lost, it already)
one pair of glasses
and, if I have all this terminology right:
fourteen and a half dioptres of myopia (eight from my right eye and six and a half from my left)
and six and a half dioptres of astigmatism (five and a quarter from my right eye and one and a quarter from my left)

This was not accomplished, you will doubtless be happy to hear, with secateurs. No; all I had to do was lie on a table and let my eyeballs be carved by lasers: first a flap on the front of each eyeball, and then a divot out of the underlayer of each cornea. Of the hooky metal tool used to lift the flap, I shall say nothing. Nor of the rather unpleasant smell, heavily reminiscent of the drilling of teeth.

The experience, I freely admit, was not a pleasant one, although I did get a barley-sugar for my pains (or more likely my trembles) afterwards. Nonetheless, I think it well worth enduring for the results. From being slightly less blind than a bat (and not even equipped with sonar) I am now possessed of excellent sight in one eye and passable sight in the other, which will improve as it comes to terms with being the shape of a football, instead of, er, a football.

The discomfort was over in hours, and aside from eye-drops and eye-shields (which I shall declutter in due course), I am free to resume my life. An interdiction on reading for the first 24-48 hours was easily surmounted by the acquisition of a stack of audio books (yay for libraries); and a month-long ban on eye makeup doesn’t affect me as I don’t wear makeup anyway. Swimming is also verboten for a month, and I am looking forward to resuming this fun-filled form of exercise – all the more so as I will now be able to find my way from changing-room to pool unaided.

It is really quite a novelty, this clearness of sight. I’m not sure quite when my eyes started to need spectacular assistance (sorry! sorry…) but it must be nearly a quarter of a century now. I could not remember what it was like to wake up and see clearly, instead of waking up and fumbling for glasses or lens case. It really takes some getting used to. I keep finding myself staring at things, not because I’ve never seen them before, but because now I can’t not see. The leaves on the tree across the yard. The edge of the curtain outlined against the street light. Remarkable.