BIONIC SIGHT -- FOR YOU 

As the people of our country age and longevity lengthens, impairments that most of us would have never lived to experience in the past, are becoming common. Take cataracts for example: "an eye disease in which the crystalline lens or its capsule becomes opaque, causing partial or total blindness". It's definitly an ailment that comes with age and will eventually affect almost everyone that lives long enough. For example in 1988 there were 550 people diagnosed with cataracts were referred to the Canadian Institute for the Blind (CNIB). Of that total just 90 were under fifty. 381 of the balance were over 70. Probably thousands more handled their vision problem privately. Regardless of your age bracket let me relieve your worries.

In the interests of my readers, scientific research and my own failing vision, I recently underwent the latest eye operation to correct cataracts. On a scale of one to ten (with a dental root canal operation as a ten) this is a two. If I had taken an aspirin, it would have qualified as a one. If I hadn't had it done with just a local anesthetic, so I could watch, it would have been boring.

A cataract began to develop in my right eye about five years ago. One of the first signs is the halo that appears around street lights. Not unpleasant, just different. It continued, in my case, to develop quite slowly. After five years my reading ability in that eye was 200-300. At that level reading is almost impossible, except that with a computer you can, fortunately, increase the size of type as the deterioration continues. By that time night driving becomes hazardous. Headlights look like the rising sun.

The sooner one visits an ophthalmologist the better. It is usually preferable for the cataract to "grow" to a certain stage before the operation, as the lens that has to be removed is replaced to one providing adequate vision. The "eye doctor" will continue to examine your eyes over a period of time. One eye usually progresses slightly faster than the other. Eye glasses slowly become ineffective. Somewhere along this time path the ophthalmologist, a medical doctor with five years of specialized post-doctorate training, will arrange a series of tests to determine inner eye conditions. He or she will then determine the corrective "bionic" implant lens to be inserted and the various post-operative medical prescriptions required. I wouldn't call it the "bedside manner treatment" but my doctor explained everything quite simply yet thoroughly. After all it is your vision and some doctors may appear very serious.

In my case I was admitted to St. Mary's Hospital in New Westminster, B.C. the day preceding the operation. You get no food after supper but drops for both eyes -- to clear them of any infection you might have. Sometimes drops may be prescribed for a few days prior to hospital admission. A loving spouse or companion might handle this for you. It's very simple.

Early the next day, you are awoken and given a few more drops, then they wheel you off to surgery -- just like on television. More drops. Then, the eye is "frozen" with marcaine, a local anesthetic similar to that used by dentists. I've been bitten by mosquitos with larger needles. It was over before I felt it.

From here on, you feel nothing and just watch. Watching, from the inside, what you see resembles looking upwards into a fish bowl or a scuba diver's view of the surface. The picture is not clear, yet not totally distorted. You can see (at least I did) the instrument moving and opening up the eye. Because this is microscopic surgery and a delicate operation, a previously fitted "donut" holds the skull and keeps it from moving.

Shortly thereafter, the lens capsule is slit and the lens cortex removed, and a tiny (about one-quarter the area of a contact lens) lens is implanted behind the iris and into the lens capsule. This is the delicate, and beneficial part of the entire operation.

Although the average operation of this type takes no more than 30 minutes, preparation and set-up runs to about one hour. After the lens is implanted, the small wound is sewn up with thin nylon thread that dissolve during the next 12 months. A patch is placed over the new eye (for 24 hours) and you are wheeled back to your room for a delayed breakfast.

Some people may experience a slight "eye ache" for a few hours. I refused offered pain killers in order to see just how long such minor pain would continue. It obviously didn't keep me awake that night but I still had a slight ache until about two hours after breakfast the next morning. After that nothing.

Even seven hours after the operation I had no trouble walking down the hall to a pay phone and dialing the right numbers.

The next morning the opthamologist examines your eyes, you receive more drops, and unless there is some complication you are free to go home. You still have to take it easy for a day or so and you are NOT TO LIFT ANYTHING HEAVY FOR WEEKS. Apparently that puts too heavy a strain on healing tissues. At the end of three weeks a new prescription for glasses is likely necessary to handle the greatly improved vision. I went from that 20/300 in my right eye to 20/25 sixteen days after the operation. I have not yet received the new prescription for my glassess but any new glasses I may wear will be considerably thinner.

Ophthalmologists, under the B.C. Medicare Plan, receive what I consider a paltry $414 for the basic operation plus $133 for the lens implant surgery. The $200. cost of the actual lens is covered under the medical plan. They are responsible for you -- at no extra charge -- during the convalescent 42 days after the operation. Considering the skill, responsibility and usual results of the operation, it's the bargain of the decade. In the U.S., the cost would run between US$4500 -- US$6,000, hospital accomodation extra. And, you would pay. More information: The names and addresses of ophthalmologists in your area can be obtained from: College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C., 1807 West 10th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. Phone: 733-7758

(Editor's note: Frank Ogden's eye doctor was: Dr. W.J. Couldwell, New Westminster, B.C.)

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