Farsighted Again: Healing While Streaming - November 2025 Part 2
2,020 words.
This will probably be short because it occurred to me I won’t be able to see very well to write after the 25th, he says, hastily throwing some thoughts into the document on the 24th. (Spoiler: It isn’t short.)
Cataract Surgery
Actually it doesn’t take long before you can see again after cataract surgery, he says on the 28th. If you make the font pretty big, at least. I didn’t write out the details of my surgery in 2018, which I regretted, so now I’ll write it all down.
It began about 9:40 on the 25th. As I entered the factory line of cataract surgery, I first sat in a chair and signed a couple of consent forms. They took my blood pressure, temperature, and checked my blood oxygen. Standard vitals stuff that I’ve now had done about a thousand times during this summer of health problems. They gave me my first eye drop there, dilating the pupil. They confirmed they were working on the left eye and drew an X near it.
Then they moved me to what I first thought was a fancy wheelchair in a very cold hallway outside the preop room. They gave me a blanket because it was freezing back there. They put an IV stint in my right arm, something else that’s been done about a thousand times to me this year. Then I waited, while I watched the birds outside the window.
I was waiting for a space to open in the preop room, as the factory line of patients moved on. They finally rolled me into the preop room, where there was space for two patients. Another patient was already there in the queue ahead of me. They rolled me into the empty bay and that’s when I realized my fancy wheelchair turned into a gurney, so I was lying flat on my back for the rest of it. (Not super comfortable for me, thanks to my neck.)
They attached wires to my chest so they could listen to my heartbeat, and put a cuff on my left arm so they could monitor my blood pressure (though I don’t recall it ever actually activating). They gave me two more rounds of numbing drops in the left eye. The doctor arrived briefly and double-checked that it was my left eye he was working on, and he drew another mark on my face.
I waited a lot, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about how uncomfortable it was to lie on my back like that, and how cold it was, and how cold and clammy my hands and feet were.
I got the second numbing drop, then the anesthetist came in and asked a couple of questions, and listened to my heart and lungs. He said I was going to be “sedated” which confused me because I thought meant he meant I was going to get knocked completely out, but after I asked he confirmed it wasn’t that much sedative. (In fact, I barely felt whatever they gave me.)
The anesthetist wheeled my gurney into the operating room, pushed a sedative into my IV, and then …
Well, I guess there was more sedative than I realized because it’s a little hazy for the next few minutes. I don’t remember if I was wheeled into another room for the actual surgery or not. I think I was, but I don’t have a clear memory of it.
It’s also hard to remember because I wasn’t really able to see much. I think they must have put something over my face and eyes to limit my field of vision, but I don’t remember that part. I just suddenly wasn’t able to see much.
During the procedure, I couldn’t see anything of my environment. But I could see something and it’s hard to describe. It was almost like I was seeing a closeup of the bubbles of a lava lamp, colorful bubbles against a dark background. I could see the bubbles moving, and maybe dividing, or combining. I remember seeing three bubbles touching to form a triangular sort of shape at one point. I can only guess those shapes were the removal of the bad lens and the insertion of the artificial lens, and my brain trying to make sense of it.
I was conscious the entire time, more conscious than I remember from my 2018 procedure, and I remember hearing the doctor talking. “A little pressure here,” and “now some water” while it felt like they were washing my eye out a few times. It took a grand total of about 10 minutes. I felt no pain whatsoever. I found it rather fascinating.
Somehow I ended up in a postop room, and they disconnected me from all the vitals wires, removed the IV, and sat me up. They taped a clear plastic shield with holes in it over my left eye. I was able to stand up and walk out without any issues, and I could see better immediately. It was like the whole world on the left side of my face was there again.
I never felt like I’d been sedated at all. I felt fine and could see fine on the ride home; I could have easily driven myself.
During “recovery” I have to put drops in my eyes 4 times a day, one of which is a steroid and the other is I think an antibiotic. This time, the steroid isn’t chalky and unpleasant like it was in 2018. They also told me to wear the plastic shield at night just in case I poke my eye in my sleep (something I didn’t have to do in 2018).
The next day, my distance vision was amazing and like it had always been that way. I drove to my followup appointment without any issues.
The only problem is when I try to focus on something within 5 feet of my face, like, you know, a computer screen or a phone, the main things I need to see in my life. But a television across the room? Perfect. I went from not being able to read the biggest letter on the eye chart to 20/25 vision the next day.
The first day or two, closeup vision was a little swimmy and my eye tired out very quickly. After that it felt more “normal,” in the sense that it felt like plain old farsightedness, where I just can’t focus on near things.
I have an optometrist appointment early in December and then I’ll probably have to wait until January to get fitted for new computer glasses. Until then I’ll have to make do with temporary drug store reader glasses.
I was able to see well enough with readers to take a failed USB hard drive apart. (Only to find there’s no SATA port hidden in there and there’s nothing I can do to recover the data unless I want to try replacing the circuit board with another one.)
Gaming
Necesse. This is a game I’ve forgotten to mention for a while. I think of it like Terraria, except it has a superior top-down perspective. Every time I try to play Terraria, I get annoyed with the side-scrolling nonsense and quit before I get anywhere. But Necesse is more like playing Dwarf Fortress in Adventure Mode (but substantially less complicated). It’s fun for killing time, but it’s a game where it’s not very clear what you’re supposed to do.
I’ve re-installed a bunch of CRPGs like Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, and Wasteland 2 and 3, but I haven’t yet re-started playing them again. Most all of those games are usually left in some state of incompletion. I love all the videos I’ve recorded of CRPGs, and I always want to continue and see what happens next, but it’s a lot of reading to commit to, a particularly difficult proposition right after cataract surgery.
I got an invite to the Stars Reach thing. Am I allowed to say that? I vaguely remember somebody else mentioning playing it, probably Bhagpuss or TAGN, so I guess it’s okay. Anyway, when I tried to log in the first time, it said the server wasn’t running. The second time, I logged in and went through an uninspiring tutorial about unintuitive controls which I will obviously forget 10 seconds later, then I logged out. Remember when you logged into World of Warcraft (or pretty much any MMORPG) the first time and it plunked you right in the middle of the world and you could run around and interact immediately? Long forgotten, I guess.
Needless to say, Stars Reach doesn’t look very compelling to me. It’s hard not to be pessimistic about these things, but it looks like yet another in a long line of people trying to eke out a meager living building a game for the handful of niche people who still wish Star Wars Galaxies was a thing.
I haven’t played any PS5 games lately, so whatever I mentioned before, I haven’t played since. Abiotic Factor didn’t stick. Stray didn’t stick either, as soon as I got to the marketplace where I had to think about inventory and pick a direction to go instead of just following rails.
Media Consumption
Pluribus (AppleTV via. Amazon). I keep watching it. It’s interesting, but nothing much is actually happening in the show. Did I mention it’s very, very slow-paced? It’s frustrating to watch shows that are clearly meant to be binge-watched, but you only get one episode a week, and nothing much happens.
Death by Lightning (Netflix). Good show about forgotten president James Garfield and his similarly forgotten assassin. I didn’t know anything about any of this stuff, other than the fact that he was a president once and that he was assassinated. I feel like there should be a Chester Arthur sequel though.
The Beast In Me (Netflix). Decent crime thriller I guess. The main draw is the acting. The story felt a bit middling. I kept waiting for some kind of twist or surprise but there weren’t any. Weirdly I don’t think I’ve ever seen Claire Danes in anything before.
One Battle After Another (Amazon). Wasn’t what I expected. A Tarentino-esque modern folk tale. Pretty good. Cool camera work near the end with the road stuff. Not really sure what it was about or what to say about it. Was it a comedy? A drama? Not sure. Worth seeing, though. Not likely to ever re-watch, though.
Once We Were Spacemen (YouTube). Nathon Fillion and Alan Tudyk are the latest to do a podcast, where they, at least initially, talk to former Firefly cast members.
Con Man (Amazon). Re-watched recently because I heard it mentioned on the Once We Were Spacemen podcast.
Homeland (Netflix). The only other show I knew Claire Danes was in, along with that guy from Band of Brothers. I’ve always heard the first season was fantastic, but the rest of it isn’t. Anyway it just appeared on Netflix so I clicked on it during my “I can’t really use a computer right now” eye healing time.
I wouldn’t say the first season is fantastic, but it’s not terrible. (However, it’s not an acceptable substitute for 24.) I thought the second season was better, but the Internet disagrees. The third season plummeted off a cliff as they wrote most of the previous main characters out of the story and tried to do something new.
Seeing an older show reminds me how much I miss normal-paced television shows. In today’s streaming landscape, they usually have one story idea that is dragged out and beaten to death until you’re bored and sick to death of it. In olden times, they used to write episodes so they would be individually entertaining. I appreciated that they didn’t drag out secrets for the entire season, but resolved secret after secret in one or two episodes.
Cancer Corner
Nothing new. Still slowly regaining weight. Will have a new scan by my next post.
Random Thought of the Day
Space: Above And Beyond should have the same cult fanaticism that Firefly does.
Bye!
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