YAG Laser Capsulotomy

25 February, 2020

Musings

Unrolling a Twitter thread because it’s sort of like a blog post, kind of.

Today I’m getting scar tissue blasted out of my eye with a laser beam. Maybe by tonight I’ll be able to read and write again. Or be permanently blind in one eye. The possibilities are endless!

I’m using humor as a defense mechanism!

Procedure is complete and I can already see much much better. Had no idea how bad it had gotten. Poor vision kind of sneaks up on you.

Still can’t focus on anything within arm’s length but that’s a different problem for a different day.

Feels like my depth perception has improved, which is a weird feeling. The world on the right side of my face feels more real than it was yesterday. My poor left eye has been doing most of my vision work the last six months or so.

P. S. The procedure is called a “YAG Laser Capsulotomy” (no Wikipedia article available, possibly the first time I’ve ever been unable to find an article there) and is a very common requirement after having a cataract removed. In my case it took longer than normal to fix due to changing health insurance and having to find a new eye doctor that was “in-network.” Going back for a followup next month, when I can hopefully finally figure out what I need to be able to read a stupid computer screen comfortably again. Whoever decided that all of life’s reading and writing needs to be done on a screen at arm’s length or less was not planning for aging eyes.

Here's a picture of the actual laser device that I looked into while the guy worked on my eye. It took about a minute.

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