The first thing I noticed after cataract eye surgery was how much more colourful everything is. I was walking the dog while wearing sunglasses as directed by the eye doctor. When I tipped the sunglasses down on my nose to have an unfiltered view of the world I was astonished at how green the trees were, how vibrant the flowers were, and how blue the sky was. It was like I had suddenly been given high-def 3D vision. I was no longer viewing the world through a thin veil. I felt reborn.

Getting cataract surgery is like getting hearing aids after years of denying we need them. When I got my first hearing aids I walked out of the audiologist’s office hearing my sandals flip-flopping for the first time in years. When I went to the bank I could hear the teller further down the counter talking to her customer. Wow! These mind-blowing revelations reminded me of how much I’d been missing. Cataract surgery had the same kind of effect.

Now that I can hear and see properly, I have been gifted an entirely new set of senses that a few years ago would not have been so easily fixable, and I am thrilled that our generation is the lucky beneficiary of these technological developments.

There is one serious downside, however, that I am embarrassed to admit being concerned about. Until my eye surgery, I could look in my bathroom mirror with my glasses on and see a reasonable facsimile of my baby boomer face circa 1980-ish, and an even better version if I removed my glasses. I carefully avoid checking myself out in the 10X magnifying mirror, for obvious reasons.

When I first saw my face, post-surgery and without glasses, I was horrified. Where in the name of creation did those under-eye circles come from, those wrinkles, that neck? Whose jowls are those? Bad vision had protected me from properly seeing the horrors of aging. I was shocked at seeing my own face in high-def 3D. After going around for years feeling confident about my relative lack of wrinkles and imperfections for an old lady, I am now properly and duly chastened. Ouch!

Like any secretly vain, aging boomer, my immediate and logical response was to log onto Sephora’s website and order industrial-strength eye cream and some new face serum. Applying my new magic elixirs twice daily seems to have little effect on the damage done, but I’m hopeful my view of myself will soften over time. If that’s all I have to worry about I’m a pretty lucky girl.

The worst part of the cataract surgery was the wait time. Hospitals and specialists are still dealing with COVID backlog so I waited a year and a half for the ten-minute procedure, which was carried out at a local hospital. Of course, there were multiple trips to the ophthalmologist’s office for measurements and followups, but my name eventually worked its way to the top of the list. My husband is scheduled for next month. I wonder how he will react to clearly seeing the “new and improved me”.

After three hip replacements, two new hearing aids, and cataract surgery I’m hoping my new bionic replacement parts hold up for at least another twenty years or so! Some of my other body parts are far from being in perfect working order but on the whole, I’m damn lucky. I’m still here. I’m still getting around. The way I see it, life is better than good, no matter how you look at it.