Yesterday I had cataract surgery; today I find myself living in a new world. This world is sharper, this world is more vibrant, this world is more detailed. Looking out the window gives me pleasure; it’s more than just a blur. I have not seen this well without glasses since college.
This morning I got up early to make my 7:45 Doctor’s appointment. I walked over there by myself without glasses. That wasn’t that easy as I still had the protective cap on my eye and had to look through the small holes. I couldn’t see straight ahead, but I made it. I got there and the technician tested my vision. The left eye is not perfect, it’s 20-25, that’s good enough. With my right eye I couldn’t see the chart. Not kidding. The doctor looked at and in my eye and said it looked great. It feels great. I see him again in two weeks and then we make an appointment to do the right eye. Then I’ll once again experience the joys of binocular vision.
I sat down at my computer and changed the settings. I used to have everything at a screen magnification of 120%, now it’s at 100%. Odd thing, the glasses made things look smaller. That’s very clear when I put them on and look out my right eye then take them off and look out the left. I see better if I close my right eye, so its blurred image is not superimposed on the left’s. I considered wearing an eye patch to get rid of that and more importantly, look cool. I suspect that my brain will just shut down incorporating the right eye’s image on its own. If not I’ll consider the patch. As I’m just using one eye should I call myself Leela or Cyclops? I know, Polyphemus; that’s more obscure. I hope all My Gentle Readers get the reference. If not that is why god invented Google. Pseudointellectual aside; Cyclops is pronounced Kyklops. The C in Latin is always hard, and the original Greek was spelled with a kappa. You can call my Cyclops if you pronounce it that way.
This was the most miraculous medical procedure I’ve undergone. Others have saved my live but they didn’t improve my life so much the next day. People don’t appreciate science enough. If I lived at the time of Jesus I’d be considered a blind man. Without glasses and surgery I could hardly see. Why is it a miracle if Jesus made a blind man see but not Doctor Schultz? We live in an age of miracles and wonders and don’t appreciate it. We can give an amputee a leg that lets him run faster than he did with his own. We can let the deaf hear. We can fly! We can talk and even see people on the other side of the world. Why is a smart phone less miraculous than a crystal ball? It isn’t, it’s more miraculous. A crystal ball can’t tell me what Ty Cobb batted in 1918 or where the best pizza near me is. That same phone does the job of the column of smoke during the day and the pillar of fire at night that led the Israelites to the promised land.
X-Rays, CT Scans, MRIs, and sonograms, and PET Scans let us see right inside of people. To some degree they can even let us see what another person is thinking. SCUBA lets us breathe underwater. Robots do what Talos, the mechanical man of Hephaestus did. Without getting of my chair I can create images and sounds that tell a story on the TV across the room.
Insulin lets a diabetic live a normal life, antibiotics routinely cure diseases that killed millions through most of history. We can replace the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys of people. Just a normal pair of glasses is a miracle unknown to the ancients. We can find planets orbiting distant stars and even identify what’s in their atmospheres. We can cook food in minutes without heat in a microwave. Look around the room, you will spot miracle after miracle. Edison banished the dark, Bell eliminated distance. We can hear the voice of Caruso even though he died almost a century ago. We can stay cool on the hottest day. The Romans would have to bring snow from the mountains to make sherbet, we just open our freezer.
For most of history most people lived in extreme poverty; for the first time that’s no longer true. That miracle is result of all those other miracles. Malthus was wrong because the miracles of technology allowed food production to exceed population growth. The only reason there is hunger in the world is politics and the lack of will to end it.
I am thrilled that I can see again. We should all be thrilled at all of these miracles. Don’t take them for granted.
Wise Madness 