CLOUDY TO CLEAR

Lying in bed, I keep my eyes closed, bathed in darkness.

Then I crack open my right eye. I see a photo of an ocean sunset on the bedroom wall. The overhead light. Branches of the tree outside the window blowing in the wind.

I raise my head, close my right eye, open the left. I see the clock on the nightstand. A blue stain on white baseboards. A sleeping Boston terrier at the foot of the bed.

I see all this without glasses, without my second set of eyes.

Last month I underwent two surgeries, each lasting less than 10 minutes. In the first, the clouded lens of my right eye was removed and replaced with an artificial lens. Two weeks later, the same was done to my left eye.

More than 2.5 million cataract surgeries are done each year in the U.S. Cataracts, a clouding of the eye’s natural lens, are a part of aging. About half of Americans older than 65 have cataracts. Mine came at a fairly young age — 51.

Cataracts often develop slowly; people may have them for years without significant vision problems. Early-onset cataracts such as mine, though, tend to develop quickly. It was just last fall that my regular eye exam uncovered the beginnings of cataracts. A few months later, they were already interfering with my vision. I had particular problems with lights — for example, seeing double with traffic lights.

I was referred to Dr. Steven Dewey, an ophthalmologist at Colorado Springs Health Partners who does close to a thousand cataract surgeries a year.

Dewey — who looks a bit like actor Scott Wolf, who played doctors on TV’s “Everwood” and “The Nine” — graduated from medical school 20 years ago. The standard cataract surgery back then involved an incision of about a third of an inch and sutures. The transition was just starting to be made toward phacoemulsification, or no-stitch surgery, the standard today.

The advances in recent years, Dewey says, have been tremendous. Surgery used to require an injection around the eye to numb it; now eyedrops are used. In the past, it could take months for vision to stabilize after surgery; now a patient may see better just minutes after.

“We have gone down in incision sizes to about an eighth of an inch,” Dewey says. “We have gone from requiring sutures to no longer needing sutures. We have gone from restricting activities for four to six weeks to basically go golf the next day.”

Before surgery, I had a decision to make. I was severely nearsighted, the world a blur at almost any distance without glasses, which I’ve worn since third grade. The new lenses would not only clear up the cataracts but could correct my vision to an extent. The new lenses could allow me to see things better far away, close up, or a mix — distance in one eye and near in the other.

It’s called monovision, with the brain learning to call on either eye depending on which is needed.

Yet another option was a multifocal lens, which provides near and distance vision. Both it and monovision offered the tantalizing possibility of shedding my glasses completely, but there are drawbacks. Not everyone adapts well to monovision. And the multifocal lens, while offering more convenience, may provide less clarity and causes some people to see halos around lights.

I decided to have the right eye corrected for distance, then see how things went before deciding what to do with the left eye.

I arrived at the surgery center a little before 7 a.m. on a Wednesday. An hour later, after a series of eyedrops and instructions on post-surgical care, I was in surgery. I was sedated, not totally out but not truly awake either. I remember doctors and nurses talking — the topic was skiing — and flashes in my right eye. Then I was being asked to get off the table into a wheelchair.

In recovery, I peered out through my right eye in wonder. I could see the clock, my wife’s face, the far wall.

I slept much of the day. My eye didn’t hurt, but it felt scratchy. I had been warned not to rub it, despite an overwhelming desire to do so.

The next two weeks were tough. I could see with both eyes open, the dominant right eye taking charge, but my vision was blurred and each day ended in a headache.

Worried I would have similar problems with monovision, I decided against it. Dewey plotted a slight difference in the focusing power of the second lens, what he calls “micro monovision.”

Results weren’t as instant with the second surgery; the vision in my left eye was significantly blurred for much of the day. But by the next morning, everything from a few feet away to the mountains was pretty much crystal clear.

My only complaint: floaters. They’re tiny bits of debris in the vitreous, the jellylike fluid that fills the eye. They appear as spots or strings floating before your eye, like an incredibly bothersome gnat. Try to catch a floater in your line of sight and the movement will cause it to swirl around, making it even more annoying.

Floaters developed in my right eye a few days after the first surgery and in my left eye more than a week after the second operation. Floaters can be a normal part of aging and are more likely after cataract surgery. They’re not painful. But their sudden appearance may signal retinal detachment, a condition that can cause blindness if not quickly addressed.

It’s not clear why, but cataract surgery increases the risk of retinal detachment. That elevated risk seems to remain the same whether it’s a month after surgery or several years.

Dewey figures I have a onein-50 chance of retinal detachment. If a curtain ever suddenly falls over my field of vision, that’s my warning to get to the doctor as soon as possible.

The good news: There’s no sign so far of retinal tears or detachment. The bad news: My floaters are here to stay. Surgery can remove them, but it’s rarely done. Most people with floaters simply adapt.

“You become used to them,” Dewey says. “They never actually go away.”

My floaters already are less annoying — unless I start thinking about them, which I’m doing as I write this. Meanwhile, I am becoming used to a life less reliant on glasses.

I need them to work, read the paper or see who’s calling my cell phone.

But I no longer reach for my glasses every morning. I watch TV without them. I drive without them.

The world seems clearer, more vibrant and full of color, as if my life has been upgraded from standard TV to HDTV. But seeing myself in the mirror minus glasses leads me to ask: Who is that guy? And where did all those wrinkles come from?

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0272 or bill.radford@gazette.com