I was diagnosed with Pars Planitis at 19. It's a wonky ass autoimmune disorder that makes my eyes think that healthy cells are bad for me so they think it's a good idea to attack them.
The effect of this is that dead cells accumulated in my eyes to the point where my vision was best described as trying to look through a pair of goggles filled with water and milk. If I shook my head, the milk would go to the sides and I could see through the water, but most other times everything was just blurry and washed out.
There's only a few thousand people in the world that have this condition so no doctors that I saw really knew what to do about it. so they did what every single other doctor does when they have no other options, prescribed me Steroids. I was on Prednisone for 10 years.
One of the side effects of Prednisone is Cateracts. This is a known fact that happens to anybody that takes it for too long. Kind of fucked up that a drug that they're giving me to help my eyesight is fucking up my eyesight, right? Well, that's the way it went.
10 years later and I'm legally blind. I made the decision that my quality of life would be better if I had surgery than if I was blind so I decided to have my ocular lenses replaced with synthetics, which would completely reverse the damage that the cataracts has caused, and I will never take Prednisone again.
What was the Operation like? For me? Terrifying. I had never been put under general Anastasia and that was more terrifying for me than the surgery. Some people go under and don't come back. So I made sure to inform my anesthesiologist about my history of drug and alcohol consumption. No sense lying to the guy that is holding your life in their hands.
The surgery was very surreal. I was awake the entire time. And it was eye surgery, so you can't really look away. But you're pumped full off enough meds that you aren't capable of doing so. It was very quick in my mind so I don't have any harsh feelings about it.
After surgery. Wow....I remember leaving the hospital with the friend that came to pick me up and just being over stimulated with the colors that I saw. The world was literally beautiful to me again. I actually took up painting after my surgery because I was so excited about how I could see colors again without that whitewash that the cataracts had caused for so many years.
If you're asking this question because you're considering eye surgery. And I have any advice to give about that process. I would like to say this: Research who is doing the surgery and make sure that you are 100% confident in their ability before you choose to do so. I know that I felt that way when I went into my surgery, and it changed my life forever. I wouldn't be able to type this message to you today if I didn't make that choice and the doctor that I chose had the skill that I entrusted him with.