Modern Times And Blindness

Not so long ago, it was not at all unusual to see blind people strolling the streets tap-tapping away with their white sticks, being guided by a dog, normally a Labrador, but I have not seen anyone like that in Britain for years, as far as I recall.

That has to be a good thing; it must mean that we are beginning to cure or at least alleviate most kinds of blindness.

My aunty had cataracts for years when I was a kid in the Sixties - it was just one of those facts of life. Some individuals got them when they were old and others did not.

My brother's mother-in-law had cataracts in the late Nineties and she was enrolled on a two year waiting, but at least she had hope and they were going to be taken away free of charge.

I do not know of anyone else that has eye trouble except myself. I could not rub my spectacles clean one day and then a friend said he saw a white dot in one eye. He took me to the hospital and the optician diagnosed 'premature senile cataracts'.

Well, I live in Thailand now and he did not say those exact words. He told me that the cataracts were because I was prematurely senile.

I asked him if that was what he actually meant; he looked it up in a book and we both had a good laugh about it, although he never actually corrected himself. My condition turned out to be a little bit worse than only cataracts, but when I went from the local hospital to a major hospital in Pattaya, the surgeon saw me within 30 minutes and asked me if I wished them taken away.

I said that I did and she was willing to do the operation there and then. I got it delayed by 24 hours, but she would have sorted my eye out that day in a 30 minute operation, which does not need anaesthetic. I think that that was marvelous.

We have come a long way from habitually seeing blind people on the street and putting up with cataracts through a two-year waiting list to instant removal of cataracts by laser surgery in 40-50 years.

At least we have in the Developed World and in the East as well, if you have the money. There are still millions of people in Asia and especially in Africa experiencing blindness and partial blindness for the sake of a simple 30 minute operation.

Two weeks after my operation, my other eye began to cloud over. It was as if it had been holding on with its last scrap of strength until I got his mate sorted out. I had that one done last year and when I was permitted to take off my patch and look about me with two decent eyes again for the first time in a decade, I could not believe that I had forgotten how bright the world actually is and that I had not noticed how dingy my world had gotten.

If you are concerned about an eye operation, do not be. What you will experience when you can see in the correct manner again will make all the worry appear ludicrous and if you get the chance to give someone their vision back, please do it.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with the macular degeneration test. If you want to know more, please visit our site at Macular Degenerative Disease