Sightlessness These Days

Not very long ago, it was not at all out of the ordinary to see blind people strolling along 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 remember.

That has to be a good thing; it has to mean that we are starting to cure or at least alleviate most forms 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 people got them when they were getting on 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 list to have them taken away, but at least she had hope and they were going to be got rid of free of charge.

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

Well, I live in Thailand now and he did not say those precise 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 really corrected himself.

My condition turned out to be a little more serious than just 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 wanted the cataracts removed.

I said that I did and she was prepared to do the operation there and then. I got it put off for 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 wonderful.

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

At least we have in the West and in the East as well, if you have the money. There are still millions of people in Asia and especially in Africa suffering blindness and partial blindness for the sake of an easy 30 minute operation.

Two weeks after my surgical treatment, 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 around me with two good eyes again for the first time in a decade, I could not believe that I had forgotten how bright the world really is and that I had not noticed how dingy my world had become.

If you are worried about an eye operation, do not be. What you will experience once you are able to see properly again will make all the worry appear ridiculous and if you have the opportunity to give someone their vision back, please do it.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a number of subjects, and is now concerned with 500 Delicious Diabetic Recipes. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Easy Diabetic Meals