Miracle

I've worn progressively thicker glasses since I was six years old.  By the time I was grown, I was so myopic that without them, I couldn't clearly see anything more than a few inches away. I wore contacts when I was younger, but after a time, they didn't seem worth the hassle.  As I got older, I also developed near-sightedness.  It seems unfair that the two don't balance each other out, but they don't.  I started wearing tri-focals and also had "up close" glasses, as well as prescription sun glasses.  Of course, I was constantly whipping them on and off and trying to keep track of all three.
I've always been terrified of going blind.  The fear may have grown partly because when I was a kid, my mother suggested I learn braille.  She meant well, I know, and it was just a casual comment, but I was impressionable and subject to a vivid, not to say wildly active, imagination.  I half-believed she had received word I would eventually go blind.  Nobody else in my birth family had myopia, and my twin sister didn't wear glasses, so I was the different one.
In middle age, I developed cataracts, adding to my poor eyesight.  My children kept urging--"nagging" might be the more appropriate word--me to get them removed. Oh, no, no; what if the scalpel slipped or the doctor was drunk?  But after years of resistance, I finally consented.  A few weeks ago, I had surgery on my right eye and yesterday, on the left.  How did it turn out?
Like a friggin' miracle.  I can see without glasses to drive, look at people, and walk around.  I'm simply stunned at being able to go about my everyday life without something on the bridge of my nose.  I was told I must wear sunglasses on sunny days--but I can buy myself a glamorous pair that don't have to be prescription!  I also need glasses for close work, but get this: The ones I'm wearing now are perfectly fine and they cost eight dollars.  Why, I could buy a dozen pair and have them all over the house!
Anyway, I'm still getting used to this incredible freedom and will be eternally grateful to my children, medical science, and Nicole M. Pritz, M.D.