Cyclops minded

April 4, 2009

There's not a whole lot of difference between one big eye and two that don't match, and that's what I've got now.

Talk about surprises.

I had only heard an opthamologist use the word cataract once in reference to me and then I found myself peering through a surgery curtain into the baby blues of a confident knife man.

That was Thursday.

Today, Saturday, I weirdly bear the aftereffects. The pupil of my surgery eye is the size of a quarter. I look very science fiction, Clockwork Orangeish. My distance vision went to 20:20 immediately, but I'm still glasses dependent to read. That's supposed to change with my implanted Crystalens, which is supposed to grab hold like a cowboy to a bucking bronco, but maybe not until he has hit the ground a half dozen throws.

I plan to roll out my special effects on Fashion Rocks Akron tonight, where my friends Lauren and Jakob Ward are throwing the biggest party in town at the WE Gallery. That means I will not be in the studio for this month's Art Walk.

My apologies.

A lot of people think that cataracts are like mold that grows on one's lenses. Wrong. The truth is that the lens itself has become a tobacco-like sludge and colors everything you see. That means that I painted my living room walls the wrong color last summer.

It also means that your confident knife man carves -- carves -- the original lens out of your eye and more or less pops in a new one. Let's talk about the psychology behind all of this. While everybody you know poo-poos this life-altering experience as run-of-the-mill, you are literally peeing your pants.

Still, you get no sympathy. And just when you think you've regained your equilibrium and your pupil the-size-of-a-quarter returns to normal,
the whole scenario begins anew.

Part II is scheduled for the end of the Medical Month of April.