Member-only story
“Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.”
- Madeleine L’Engle, American writer (1918–2007)
One day, over a decade ago, when I lived in a different place, I happened to be at my desktop computer.
I noticed a bit of waviness of print on the computer screen. Almost instinctively I covered first one eye with cupped hand, then the other. When I viewed the screen with my left eye, lines of print were straight. But when I viewed it with my right eye, the lines were wavy and uneven, not parallel.
The ophthalmologist confirmed my suspicion that I had macular degeneration, one of the two most common causes of blindness in this country (the other glaucoma). The visual acuity in my right eye was less than that in my left and has remained so to this day.
I also subsequently developed open angle glaucoma, for which I take two different eyedrops in an effort to forestall rise of intraocular pressure.
Fortunately, that pressure has remained controlled and the age-related dry macular degeneration appears fairly stable.
My cataracts are mild and actually less than what one might expect at my age.
One of my brothers (a retired ophthalmologist, no less) has glaucoma so severe he has had multiple eye surgeries and stopped driving a…
