#cataract surgery both eyes

[saszor]

image description both in alt text and copied below!

another drawing of disabled* people hanging out chilling living life etc :-)

*technically the carer of the person in the pink wheelchair isn't disabled but carers are a part of the disabled people living life experience sometimes. so it counts 👍

previous drawings of this series

[1] [2] [3]

[image description copied from alt text: drawing of 13 characters on a blue background. on the left side is a fem-presenting Asian guy with spina bifida in a wheelchair. his wheelchair has a much higher footrest to accommodate his short legs. behind him is a man with cerebral palsy using crutches and an AFO. he is wearing a tank top showing his top surgery scars. he has an uneven smile and strabismus. behind them is a drawing from the chest up of a Brown fat man reading in his bed with a CPAP mask on. he's smiling and shuffling the pages of the book. in the center part of the image are three people holding hands with hearts above them. the one on the left is a Black girl in a blue skirt using a cane. she is smiling and looking to the side. the one in the center is a fat Black person wearing a matching pink top, leggings and knee brace. they have a large heart surgery scar going across their chest and a smaller one on their forehead. they are smiling and looking at the person they are holding hands with. that person is an agender person with albinism wearing a hat with a wide rim, sweater and jeans. ze also has a pair of sunglasses hanging on hir collar. hir eyes are unfocused and looking in opposite directions. ze is smiling. below them are two Deafblind people. they are talking using the Deafblind Manual, with one of them finger spelling on the other's palm. the character doing the signing has congenital rubella and cataracts. they are white and have gray hair, acne and a focused expression. the person they are signing to is a white woman with ginger hair. she is smiling and staring forward. she wears a hearing aid. on the top right of the image is a Black man in a large pink power wheelchair with a trach tube. he is sitting still with one eye visibly open. next to him is a white guy with a bottle in one hand and feeding tube in the other. there are speech bubbles with icons indicating 1 eye closed for "yes" and both eyes closed for "no". below them are three kids playing with plushies. the plushies are a crocodile, belonging to a Brown girl with a C-shaped scar on one side of her head, a purple cat with one of it's paws missing belonging to an East Asian girl with an upper limb difference, and a rat belonging to a white girl with intellectual disability and small, spread out eyes wearing a scoliosis brace. they all seem happy.]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A year in illustration, 2023 edition (part one)

(This is part one; part two is here.)

I am objectively very bad at visual art. I am bad at vision, period – I'm astigmatic, shortsighted, color blind, and often miss visual details others see. I can't even draw a stick-figure. To top things off, I have cataracts in both eyes and my book publishing/touring schedule is so intense that I keep having to reschedule the surgeries. But despite my vast visual deficits, I thoroughly enjoy making collages for this blog.

For many years now – decades – I've been illustrating my blog posts by mixing public domain and Creative Commons art with work that I can make a good fair use case for. As bad as art as I may be, all this practice has paid off. Call it unseemly, but I think I'm turning out some terrific illustrations – not all the time, but often enough.

Last year, I rounded up my best art of the year:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/25/a-year-in-illustration/

And I liked reflecting on the year's art so much, I decided I'd do it again. Be sure to scroll to the bottom for some downloadables – freely usable images that I painstakingly cut up with the lasso tool in The Gimp.

The original AD&D hardcover cover art is seared into my psyche. For several years, there were few images I looked at so closely as these. When Hasbro pulled some world-beatingly sleazy stuff with the Open Gaming License, I knew just how to mod Dave Trampier's 'Eve Of Moloch' from the cover of the Players' Handbook. Thankfully, bigger nerds than me have identified all the fonts in the image, making the remix a doddle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception

Even though I don't keep logs or collect any analytics, I can say with confidence that "Tiktok's Enshittification" was the most popular thing I published on Pluralistic this year. I mixed some public domain Brother's Grimm art, mixed with a classic caricature of Boss Tweed, and some very cheesy royalty-free/open access influencer graphics. One gingerbread cottage social media trap, coming up:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To illustrate the idea of overcoming walking-the-plank fear (as a metaphor for writing when it feels like you suck) I mixed public domain stock of a plank, a high building and legs, along with a procedurally generated Matrix "code waterfall" and a vertiginous spiral ganked from a Heinz Bunse photo of a German office lobby.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/22/walking-the-plank/

Finding a tasteful way to illustrate a story about Johnson & Johnson losing a court case after it spent a generation tricking women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos-tainted talcum was a challenge. The tulip (featured in many public domain images) was a natural starting point. I mixed it with Jesse Wagstaff's image of a Burning Man dust-storm and Mike Mozart's shelf-shot of a J&J talcum bottle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

"Google's Chatbot Panic" is about Google's long history of being stampeded into doing stupid things because its competitors are doing them. Once it was Yahoo, now it's Bing. Tenniel's Tweedle Dee and Dum were a good starting point. I mixed in one of several Humpty Dumpty editorial cartoon images from 19th century political coverage that I painstakingly cut out with the lasso tool on a long plane-ride. This is one of my favorite Humpties, I just love the little 19th C businessmen trying to keep him from falling! I finished it off with HAL 9000's glowing red eye, my standard 'this is about AI' image, which I got from Cryteria's CC-licensed SVG.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Though I started writing about Luddites in my January, 2022 Locus column, 2023 was the Year of the Luddite, thanks to Brian Merchant's outstanding Blood In the Machine:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When it came time to illustrate "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk," I found a public domain weaver's loft, and put one of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes in the window. Magpie Killjoy's Steampunk Magazine poster, 'Love the Machine, Hate the Factory,' completed the look.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

For the "small, non-profit school" that got used as an excuse to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, I brought back Humpty Dumpty, mixing him with a Hogwartsian castle, a brick wall texture, and an ornate, gilded frame. I love how this one came out. This Humpty was made for the SVB bailout.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/23/small-nonprofit-school/#north-country-school

The RESTRICT Act would have federally banned Tiktok – a proposal that was both technically unworkable and unconstitutional. I found an early 20th century editorial cartoon depicting Uncle Sam behind a fortress wall that was keeping a downtrodden refugee family out of America. I got rid of most of the family, giving the dad a Tiktok logo head, and I put Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes over each cannonmouth. Three Boss Tweed moneybag-head caricatures, adorned with Big Tech logos, rounded it out.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

When Flickr took decisive action to purge the copyleft trolls who'd been abusing its platform, I knew I wanted to illustrate this with Lucifer being cast out of heaven, and the very best one of those comes from John Milton, who is conveniently well in the public domain. The Flickr logo suggested a bicolored streaming-light-of-heaven motif that just made it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/#pilkunnussija

Old mainframe ads are a great source of stock for a "Computer Says No" image. And Congress being a public building, there are lots of federal (and hence public domain) images of its facade.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/04/cbo-says-no/#wealth-tax

When I wrote about the Clarence Thomas/Harlan Crow bribery scandal, it was easy to find Mr. Kjetil Ree's great image of the Supreme Court building. Thomas being a federal judge, it was easy to find a government photo of his head, but it's impossible to find an image of him in robes at a decent resolution. Luckily, there are tons of other federal judges who've been photographed in their robes! Boss Tweed with the dollar-sign head was a great stand-in for Harlan Crow (no one knows what he looks like anyway). Gilding Thomas's robes was a simple matter of superimposing a gold texture and twiddling with the layers.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

"Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes" is one of my best titles. This is the post where I introduce the idea of "twiddling" as part of the theory of enshittification, and explain how it relates to "reverse centaurs" – people who assist machines, rather than the other way around. Finding a CC licensed modular synth was much harder than I thought, but I found Stephen Drake's image and stitched it into a mandala. Cutting out the horse's head for the reverse centaur was a lot of work (manes are a huuuuge pain in the ass), but I love how his head sits on the public domain high-viz-wearing warehouse worker's body I cut up (thanks, OSHA!). Seeing as this is an horrors-of-automation story, Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes make an appearance.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Rockefeller's greatest contribution to our culture was inspiring many excellent unflattering caricatures. The IWW's many-fists-turning-into-one-fist image made it easy to have the collective might of workers toppling the original robber-baron.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

I link to this post explaining how to make good Mastodon threads at least once a week, so it's a good thing the graphic turned out so well. Close-cropping the threads from a public domain yarn tangle worked out great. Eugen Rochko's Mastodon logo was and is the only Affero-licensed image ever to appear on Pluralistic.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

I spent hours on the sofa one night painstakingly cutting up and reassembling the cover art from a science fiction pulp. I have a folder full of color-corrected, high-rez scans from an 18th century anatomy textbook, and the cross-section head-and-brain is the best of the lot.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Those old French anatomical drawings are an endless source of delight to me. Take one cross-sectioned noggin, mix in an old PC mainboard, and a vector art illo of a virtuous cycle with some of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes and you've got a great illustration of Google's brain-worms.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

Ireland's privacy regulator is but a plaything in Big Tech's hand, but it's goddamned hard to find an open-access Garda car. I manually dressed some public domain car art in Garda livery, painstakingly tracing it over the panels. The (public domain) baby's knit cap really hides the seams from replacing the baby's head with HAL9000's eye.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Naked-guy-in-a-barrel bankruptcy images feel like something you can find in an old Collier's or Punch, but I came up snake-eyes and ended up frankensteining a naked body into a barrel for the George Washington crest on the Washington State flag. It came out well, but harvesting the body parts from old muscle-beach photos left George with some really big guns. I tried five different pairs of suspenders here before just drawing in black polyhedrons with little grey dots for rivets.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

Illustrating Amazon's dominance over the EU coulda been easy – just stick Amazon 'A's in place of the yellow stars that form a ring on the EU flag. So I decided to riff on Plutarch's Alexander, out of lands to conquer. Rama's statue legs were nice and high-rez. I had my choice of public domain ruin images, though it was harder thank expected to find a good Amazon box as a plinth for those broken-off legs.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

God help me, I could not stop playing with this image of a demon-haunted IoT car. All those reflections! The knife sticking out of the steering wheel, the multiple Munsch 'Scream'ers, etc etc. The more I patchked with it, the better it got, though. This one's a banger.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

To depict a "data-driven dictatorship," I ganked elements of heavily beribboned Russian military dress uniforms, replacing the head with HAL9000's eye. I turned the foreground into the crowds from the Nuremberg rallies and filled the sky with Matrix code waterfall.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/#garbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in

The best thing about analogizing DRM to demonic possession is the wealth of medieval artwork to choose from . This one comes from the 11th century 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros.' I mixed in the shiny red Tesla (working those reflections!), and a Tesla charger to make my point.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Yet more dividends from those old French anatomical plates: a flayed skull, a detached jaw, a quack electronic gadget, a Wachowski code waterfall and some HAL 9000 eyes and you've got a truly unsettling image of machine-compelled speech.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

I had no idea this would work out so well, but daaaamn, crossfading between a Wachowski code waterfall and a motherboard behind a roiling thundercloud is dank af.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers

Of all the turkeys-voting-for-Christmas self-owns conservative culture warriors fall for, few can rival the "banning junk fees is woke" hustle. Slap a US-flag Punisher logo on and old-time card imprinter, add a GOP logo to a red credit-card blank, and then throw in a rustic barn countertop and you've got a junk-fee extracter fit for the Cracker Barrel.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Putting the Verizon logo on the Hinderberg was an obvious gambit (even if I did have to mess with the flames a lot), but the cutout of Paul Marcarelli as the 'can you hear me now?' guy, desaturated and contrast-matched, made it sing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

Note to self: Tux the Penguin is really easy to source in free/open formats! He looks great with HAL9000 eyes.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Rockwell's self-portrait image is a classic; that made it a natural for a HAL9000-style remix about AI art. I put a bunch of time into chopping and remixing Rockwell's signature to give it that AI look, and added as many fingers as would fit on each hand.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

(Images: Heinz Bunse, West Midlands Police, Christopher Sessums, CC BY-SA 2.0; Mike Mozart, Jesse Wagstaff, Stephen Drake, Steve Jurvetson, syvwlch, Doc Searls, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mosaic36/14231376315, Chatham House, CC BY 2.0; Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Mr. Kjetil Ree, Trevor Parscal, Rama, “Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center, Russian Airborne Troops Press Service, CC BY-SA 3.0; Raimond Spekking, CC BY 4.0; Drahtlos, CC BY-SA 4.0; Eugen Rochko, Affero; modified)

[blueeagls]

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[mousedetective]

Please Help A Queer Disabled Single Mother This Holiday Season?

Hi! I had another help post going around but my mom recently made a Fundrazr for her cataract surgery so I figured I'd update it.

The first sitch: My son, Trace, is disabled. He's not currently on SSI/SSDI, though, so technically he's not supposed to live with us in our senior/disabled apartment complex. We were supposed to move out on October 21st, but we got two extra months from management since he's got a lawyer and is in the process of applying, but we have a month left and the furthest he's gotten in the process is getting the self-assessment/third party assessment filed. We're trying to get him seen by a rheumatologist because we think he has psoriatic arthritis like me but the soonest appointment is January 3rd, so we doubt we'll get an approval before January 1st. Therefor we need to raise $2000 to get movers to pack/move our belonging and get ready to live in the car for a bit while we look for new housing that will take all three of us and our three cats.

The second sitch: About two months ago my mom had her annual diabetic eye exam and they discovered cataracts in both eyes. She was scheduled to have surgery last month, but when she went in for the pre-op appointment they told her she would have to pay for the surgery out of pocket since her insurance wouldn't cover it. Why? Because she had Lasik surgery in the 90s. She and I are both on disability and thanks to loan payments and the like we usually have to beg and borrow to cover rent and all our bills. The surgery itself will range from $1000 to $1500, depending on if the surgeon is still willing to do the surgery at a cheaper price, and the rest is for transportation to and from surgery and check-up appointments for me and her.

So that's what's up at the moment. I have links below for my P@yPal (I also have Venm0 and C@shapp, just ask for them) for help with moving, my mother's Fundrazr and our family Christmas wishlist since we have barely anything to give each other this year.

Any help on any of these fronts is muchly appreciated, and may you have a blessed day if you help or share.

[allthingsfern]

I want to thank all of you who read my posts and look at my photos, who also had me in your thoughts, and especially:

@themazette

@matthewschiavello

@ksjanes

@nh-art

@photoshamanism

@bwwhitney

@mostlythemarsh

@uwhe-arts

@sharonbphotos

@pointandshooter

@stephiramona

@coloradoprairie

The photo I took right after the surgery. I am also grateful to my ophthalmologist, who is great about explaining everything (and being succinct) and has a great sense of humor. Actually, after the surgery he came by and we started talking about his playlist during surgery (country western). We both agreed about some of the old great and I suggested he listen to Trio (Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt). They cut 2 albums together, both superb, and the first one is one of hte most beautiful collections of music I've ever heard. The video below, from a live performance on The Tonight Show w/ Johnny Carson, features 3 songs performed by them. A fucking treasure.

Then he went on (and on) about David Allen Coe's The Ride. When he started trying to perform the damned song, I wound up laughing while I told him to "Get out! Get out!" Maybe not the best move, since he is going to operate on my left eye on the 21st of December...

All of this to say my eyesight is really good. I can see, as my cousin who has had cataract surgery told me, "in Technicolor." I am fortunate that my ophthalmologist recommended I just have the basic lens inserted, since my eyesight is still pretty good.

It has been a weird challenge, though not unsurmountable, since I spent a lot of time sleeping but am getting a sense of me again. Grateful I can work from home and my bosses are understanding and put up with my shit.

Also am grateful for my 2 sisters (one of my sisters and her best friend, who has been part of the family for decades) who came out to be with me for a few days. They drove me nuts, but then I would expect (or want) no less. But we had a nice drive to SF and the Golden Gate Bridge and had some great meals and watched old movies. They went by themselves to the Sacramento Railroad Museum (one of my favorite museums) and to the outlet stores close by. And they bugged the shit outta me, for which I love them.

So, all's cool in the pool.

[anexperimentallife]

More clarity about my eye now that I'm calmed down:

(This is all from the attack, and I plan to sit with it for a couple of days before making any legal decisions.)

I'm not going blind, at least. The vitreous humor is detaching in my left eye, and I will get bigger and worse and more vision-interfering floaters as that happens, which will never stop, but the light flashes should get better.

This is not fixable, and it MAY lead to retinal detachment, but if that's caught in time, the retina can be reattached. So we have a standing appointment every six months forever to keep an eye (ha!) on that.

The below is NOT related to the attack:

My right retina was already partially detached from covid aftereffects, and in such a way that surgery would only make it worse. That's the eye that USED to have 20/10 vision, but now has funhouse-mirror-vision. It has gotten a little better, but will always be kind of fucked.

I will need cataract surgery on both eyes in about eight years. For now, I am getting glasses so that are least my left eye (with the increasing floaters) will be more usable in the meantime.

We didn't really talk about the blind spots yet because reasons.

And it is 4:30 am here, so I'm going to try to sleep. (With Baby El burrowing into my ribcage as usual lol)

[bomberqueen17]

dispatches from middle age

It's been a long couple of weeks, I worked six ten-hour days the week before last, and then this week I started off working hard and mildly fucked up my back on tuesday, and all day wednesday i suffered thru it, and then i was sitting at the kitchen table talking to my non-farm sister and suddenly my back went cr-CHK and was all better, which was disconcerting. It has remained a little sore and clicky but it's better, mostly.

i've been sitting down whenever i can because i just. feel. like i'm real tired. is all.

but yesterday and today i kept finishing my work and not having more to do right away, which has been awesome, and in the middle of today i took three hours to take my mother to a follow-up appointment because yesterday she had this kind of newfangled cataract surgery on her second eye, so now both her eyes are bionic and have plastic lenses in them now forever and I sort of didn't realize that's what was happening? but it means that she doesn't wear glasses anymore. she's worn glasses since 1959. This is weird. I don't recognize her.

"I need to draw eyebrows on now," she said. "There's just nothing to my face." We both have very pale eyebrows on pale skin and pale blue eyes and pale eyelashes and our faces just melt into white blobs without the anchor of glasses frames.

I told her my trick. Just For Men moustache dye, the color of your hair or a shade darker. Use it for a minute or two. Make sure you put vaseline under your brows in case it drips. it won't though. rinse it out. voila. you have eyebrows now. "I"m going to try that," she said.

"There's a ton in the little tubes and you can mix it up a tiny dose at a time," I said. "Then it takes you like. Five minutes if you count washing your face. And then you don't have to draw your eyebrows on for a month."

Eyebrow pencil is such a racket.

Anyway. Now it is drizzling rain slightly, and I just put on Mazzy Star's "So Tonight That I Might See" (1993) real quiet so I can still hear the birds and the rain and it's really peaceful.

and OH did i say i went to an estate sale last weekend with my middle-little non-farm sister and bought myself a cushy comfy chair and an ottoman so i can sit in a comfy chair in my cabin instead of a folding lawn chair. i'm really cozy now. i'm contemplating making the chair a linen slipcover for summer though.

i probably won't. but it's cozy and the birds are enjoying the rain and the field is enjoying the rain and mazzy star is fading into you, quietly.

Happy Midsummer. The strawberries are finished but the kohlrabi's first planting is going gangbusters, there are sweet crunchy things to eat and i've worked out most of my schedule for the summer and next weekend i am going to maine with my beloved and it is all going to work out just fine and i will get enough rest, someday. but tomorrow i have to work the farmer's market in the rain again, though not all day, so probably it will be fine.

and yes i am getting some writing done and it is going to be good, i promise.

[dianadeadwing]

Bobtober Day 26 - Remove

Tina removing her glasses.

Because the actual drawing for this was so quick and simple I experimented a lot with different things like varied line weight and color. I also tried to mimic double vision a little.

I’m sure it’s been said but for Tina to have needed glasses from infancy there has to be something going on with her eyesight. It’s also been implied that her vision is getting (slightly) worse and she’s both extremely near sighted and farsighted although it does seem like she has corrected 20/20 vision so it’s unlikely she has something that can only be fixed with surgery like cataracts. She also doesn’t show any signs of visual abnormalities (except for possible microphthalmia, but this could simply be artistic). Regardless she has some sort of congenital eye condition for sure.

[anamelessdragon]

Status update -

The good news: We actually hit a seasonal slump in business at work, so even though I had slots open, my weeks weren’t filled to 60 hours, leaving some room for a small bit of fic writing.

The bad news: This means I still need lots of money, which means I’ve extended my 6 day weeks through mid October, and may need to extend it even beyond that if things do not pick up. So, I officially do not know when anything will be updated again.

The great news: After 4 vet visits, I’m finally satisfied and my little dragon dog is finally being properly diagnosed/medicated so she can age with as much grace as possible.

The uncertain news: She’s still going blind, but the cataracts are due to general age rather than underlying disease. If her other issues do not stabilize with medication, the opthalmologist does not want to risk surgery. If they do, she will be getting surgery in her left eye to restore sight. Obviously, this will mean another few thousand out of my budget that I will have to make up for, but that’s assuming she’s a candidate at all.

Conclusion: Fic writing still on the backburner, and possibly longer than I had planned, even though I’m picking away at it. It will especially be on the backburner if she both can get scheduled for surgery and business does not pick up until the holidays, because then we could be talking about 6 days a week through November considering my personal medical debt increase. I basically use most of my resources towards my own health and my dogs/cats right now, so all of my wind down/relaxation processes to deal with the fatigue from long hours at work are centered around them.

[ramonaflow]

I'm having cataract surgery tomorrow and I'm very scared. I need both doing but I'm having my right one first.

The doctor told me it's nothing to worry about and the procedure apparently only takes 7 minutes but I have to be awake and not sedated 😭😭😭

It's my eye you know? Things can go wrong. Does anybody have experience of it? Can I get any reassurance or some good vibes sent my way please? I don't know, cute pictures or anything? 😫

[saszor]

image description both in alt text and copied below!

I haven't posted in so long that summer ended 😓 just pretend i'm totally on time thanks (also first time drawing a beach wheelchair? not great but an Attempt was made)

previous drawings of the series; [1] [2] [3] [4]

[image description copied from alt text: digital drawing of multiple disabled characters in swimwear hanging out on a sandy beach. in top left corner is a tall Brown person using a crutch with a scar across their spine shown from behind, talking to a skinny Black trans man with cranial nerve palsy and a head tilt, who is gesturing to something off canvas. next to them is an elderly couple relaxing under the sun on a towel; a Black man with achondroplasia is holding hands with a white man with top surgery scars and a rotationplasty on his right leg. below them is a tan autistic girl wearing a chew necklace and having an AAC device on her lap. she doesn't have much expression on her face and looks at something to her side while her friend is talking to her. the friend is a Black female amputee wearing a full body swimsuit with burn scars visible on her stumps. she has dark skin and a big smile. on the right side of the canvas is a white older woman with a large scar on one side of her chest pushing the beach wheelchair with a younger woman in it. the girl has cerebral palsy and contractures in all of her limbs. she has long hair with choppy bangs, an uneven smile and strabismus. from the bottom left to the top right is a scene of three characters in water throwing a beach ball. person holding the ball in the left corner is a fat nonbinary masc-presenting person with a grin and without an eye. their skin is brown and their hair is dyed to very light blonde while their facial hair is black. they are about to throw the ball to a girl in the top right. she has both of her hands above her head. she has a big smile and big eyebrows. most of her fingers are very short, missing, or connected with each other. behind her is a fat feminine-presenting person with neurofibromatosis and a lot of tumors on hir body. ze has short pink hair, a cataract, and a matching swimsuit. ze is smiling while looking at hir friend. most of the characters on the drawing have either body hair, stretch marks, or both. background is mostly yellow. end image description.]

[lasikcomplications]

Lasik Complications

I created this account to share my story with Lasik. I hope my experience informs others of the truth behind the Lasik industry—its deceptive marketing practices, medical negligence culture and hidden complication rates.

I got Wavefront Optimized Lasik in 2023 with the ex500 laser with an Ivy League faculty surgeon in the USA. My myopia was between -5.00 and -6.00 in both eyes beforehand. My astigmatism was minor and uncorrected beforehand, between -.25 and -.50. I actually didn’t even know I had astigmatism before getting Lasik. Since that is a normal amount for most people, it is not noticeable or corrected. My prescription had been stable for over 3 years before proceeding with Lasik.

I have many complications after Lasik and it has been traumatic both physically and mentally. It is singlehandedly the most devastating thing to ever happen to me.

The surgeon should be discussing the risks with you in relation to your specific screening and eye health history during the initial consultation, but the problem is that many do not, rather they just send you a consent form after approving you as a candidate, without explaining why thoroughly. It is solely up to you to educate and inform yourself of the risks beforehand, but you are not an expert in the field so may not know what to look for in your own research.

Below are the things I wish I had known before going through with the procedure.

1) The risk of ectasia in relation to your individual screening results (corneal thickness, age, prescription, etc.). How corneal thickness impacts possibility of retreatment down the line if needed, how further treatment would greatly increase the risk of ectasia by further thinning the cornea. The risk is also very dependent on your current prescription and current corneal thickness. Higher prescriptions require more tissue removal.

2) Dry eye risk in relation to your screening. Explanation of how Lasik severs nerves which causes dry eye, risk of corneal neuralgia if nerves do not heal adequately. Explanation of how nerves never return to preoperative levels.

3) Loss of best achieved/corrected visual acuity and loss of contrast particularly at night due to pupil dilation.

4) Risk of starbursts/halos at night in relation to the patient’s pupil size vs. treatment zone.

5) Risk of under and overcorrection, and irregular astigmatism.

6) Explanation of what the Lasik flap is, scarring risk and permanent loss of corneal strength. Comparison of risks to other procedures: PRK and Smile.

7) Risk of floaters in relation to myopia, lattice degeneration, and risk of retinal detachment or early posterior vitreous detachment due to trauma caused by suction used during procedure. 

8) Risk of rainbow glare due to laser pattern.

9) Explanation of how Lasik increases higher order aberrations which are uncorrectable through regular glasses/soft contacts and lead to visual side effects such as irregular starbursts, etc. There is no guaranteed fix--one can try topography guided retreatment, but it may not work. Scleral lenses can potentially correct but not cure.

10) Explanation of how Lasik makes cataract surgery harder to get if needed down the line. Patients getting Lasik should hold onto all previous eye records and topography scan for future cataract surgery. 11) Explanation of how Lasik leads to falsely low IOP measurements which may increase risk of undiagnosed glaucoma

Of these possible short-term and long-term risks, I currently have the following.

Rainbow glare, a rare side effect caused by the laser pattern. Usually transient over 2 years but not for all. Retreatment can fix it but cannot do due to post-Lasik dry eye syndrome and suspected corneal neuralgia.

Massive, irregular starbursts and halos at night, making night vision significantly poorer than before. I was told after the procedure during a second opinion consultation that I have larger than average dilated pupils, causing light to enter the untreated area at night which causes these visual disturbances. Only temporary pupil constriction drops can treat it, or risk topography-guided retreatment to widen the treatment zone, which may not work either. I'm not sure why I was approved for Lasik given my pupil size, but they told me nothing.

Diagnosed under correction, diagnosed worsened astigmatism after the procedure by .50 diopters in left eye

Diagnosed severe flap scarring

Diagnosed Higher order aberrations (HOAs). Spherical and coma in particular as shown by aberrometry. In only one eye I see diagonal streaks of lights on cars even during the day time, and ghosting at night making it hard to read subtitles, digital clocks, any text on dark screens (can no longer use my phone in dark mode, for example). I also see starbursts and halos at all times of day but they are massive at night. Again, HOAs cannot be easily corrected. Topography guided retreatment may or may not fix it, could make it worse, and scleral lenses may or may not help.

Floaters: I thought I had retinal detachment given all the floaters gradually appearing 1-3 months after Lasik, so I had an emergency appointment. The ophthalmologists cannot explain definitively why Lasik causes more floaters. I have been told that Lasik may just make them clearer. Another has said that the suction during the procedure stirs them up, and may damage the retina. Another has said that Lasik isn’t “supposed” to cause floaters the way cataract surgery does. But no one could provide a concrete answer. However, studies show that Lasik can lead to early Posterior Vitreous Detachment and and Retinal Detachment is a known risk of Lasik, so damage to the retina caused by the suction makes the most sense. In the most recent laser information, all of these are now listed as side effect so I was lied to.

Post-Lasik dry eye and corneal neuralgia. My nerves may or may not regrow adequately over the course of 18 months. I am currently being treated with serum tears which cost around $300 (not covered by insurance) for a 3-month supply. Serum tears are made from your own blood. Another treatment option is IPL which can be around $450 a session (also not covered by insurance). Previously tried prescription Xiidra eyedrops which is around $60 a month with insurance. Before Lasik, I rarely used eye drops. I now use them daily alongside frequent painkillers, nerve medication (Gabapentin), warm compresses and icepacks. I was told I likely had Dry Eye Syndrome before Lasik by an outside eye doctor, but wasn’t aware. I had thought I was becoming intolerant of contact lenses due to allergies. The ophthalmologist should have seen my dry eye during the Lasik screening, but if they did, they didn’t say anything and still approved me as a candidate. Many doctors will also say that Lasik “only causes dry eyes for the first few months,” but this is not true for many people. Some develop long-term or permanent dry eye syndrome and corneal neuralgia due to poor nerve regeneration. My life is very different than it was 8 months ago due to the daily discomfort and pain caused by dry eyes. This is the most devastating impact of Lasik so far. I would strongly advise against getting Lasik if you already have dry eye symptoms.

All this to say, I also knew around 10 people who got Lasik, PRK or Smile before I went through with it, and none had serious complications. Only one regretted the procedure due to regressing with his astigmatism a few years later. Another got Lasik in 2000 for -4.00 myopia and is still 20/20 today without side effects.

But given my side effects, I am shocked to be the “1 in 11.” I have wondered if the statistics are really accurate that most fare well. Even if I am the unlucky one, the 1 in 11, I would still argue that this probability is still way too high for such devastating risks. 

When I did the procedure, I was mostly basing my faith on the people around me who had gotten it, rather than digging deeper into the research, data and stories of those with complications.

A report from the FDA in 2022 highlighted some statistics around Lasik side effects/complications and they are actually quite high despite the overall short-term satisfaction rate: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/lasik/lasik-quality-life-collaboration-project#:~:text=Questionnaire%20with%20Filenames-,Study%20Results,halos)

The study also admits it doesn’t have much data on long-term side effects, long-term risks and satisfaction.

In general, the marketing around Lasik is that it has the highest satisfaction rate in the world, and is a quick and casual miracle. Given that Lasik is an elective, expensive, privately paid procedure, I believe that this is why many clinics don’t adequately discuss these risks or review the patient’s screening with them in detail. 

I am now in a Lasik support group with a lot of people who have both similar and different issues from the procedure.

The consequences of Lasik are honestly the hardest thing I have ever gone through, so I want to make sure the next person considering Lasik is more well-informed than I was, and knows their risks in relation to their individual screening and health history. If I could go back in time, I would’ve stuck with glasses and contacts.

All in all, the effects of Lasik on my physical and mental wellbeing have been truthfully devastating. My outcome and experience thus far is something for me to adapt to, cope with, accept and move forward from. 

Thank you for reading.

-C

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Verdict: PRK!

It will be more painful and have a longer recovery, but it'll be safer for me because I've had trouble scarring and healing in the past. No LASIK eye flap for me!

I have been distracted this week, because I was worried I'd hear, "No eye surgery for you. Two pairs of glasses for the rest of your life, or maybe until you get cataracts." Nope! I'm good to go!

But now I'm going to be distracted because the last time I had a "minor" surgery, I ended up with a wound that reopened and wouldn't heal for months, and no support from the surgeon. Negative support, actually. They bandaged my wound in a way that kept it from healing and blamed me. I had to get a referral to a wound clinic from my primary care doctor, weeks later.

I do not know these people. I only know the eye doctor I've been seeing trusts them. And I'm going back in two weeks to let them laser my eyeballs, both at once. I'm looking at a month or more of recovery - provided it goes well. Distance vision will be the first thing to come back, and close things will be blurry for longer. I'm going to try to store up illustrations and formatted posts for the duration, but the duration will be uncertain.

They're kinda iffy on whether I'll need reading glasses right away, or if the correction will stave that off for a few years. I'll be healing for a long time, so I'll need a few months before I can get a new prescription, if any.

There is a very slight chance my vision will get worse or I'll go blind. Probably about the same chance I'll get hit by a car on the way to the store. Still, anxiety, yaaay.

So, probably less Tumblring and less coherency from me in the near future. Followed by NO Tumblring for a couple weeks. I dunno what I'm gonna do other than use my eyes for fun. Probably a lot of podcasts. Any recommendations are appreciated!

[mousedetective]

Please Help Queer Single Mother Out?

So good news, we got most of our bills covered, I got the ice pad and we should have enough to cover Marcus's neutering surgery and blood work. But I still need help paying off the loans I took out to cover all that and food, plus we need to move next month so I need help packing and moving my things due to my sprained shoulder.

I'm estimating I'll need $500 to pay off the loans and $1500 to get our apartment packed up and moved into storage. So if anyone can help my family and I would appreciate it greatly.

In the meantime, here is a picture of my cat Sally:

$30/$2000

EDIT: We're also trying to raise $2000 for my mom's cataract surgery, which she needs for both eyes and our insurance won't cover because she had Lasik surgery in the past. The link is below if you'd rather help with that.

[kingcalaster]

OK, this is a little bit of a niche rant 

Unfortunately, when I was in the fifth grade, I developed cataracts, and I had to have surgery on both of my eyes to have them removed. Due to some complications during the surgery that were discovered about my eyes I was not capable of getting man-made lenses put in my eyes..

For those who don’t know, cataracts are fogging of the natural lens in the human eye due to calcium that takes away the vision. When you have them removed, there’s an option to have a man-made lens put in unless there are complications like I had.

This means I’m extremely light sensitive and taking a lot more than what a normal person does and need a very specific type of prescription in lens for my glasses called lenticular . there are very few labs who do lenticular lenses anymore because they’re too difficult . and the one reliable place that I have been going to for years I found out today when I went to get new glasses is no longer doing them .

I am so unbelievably frustrated because I have had a love-hate relationship with classes ever since I’ve needed to start wearing them . my vision has never been great. I need glasses even before the surgery and have been wearing them since I was four I’ve always had a glasses and this one pair that I actually truly loved and we got all the way to the point of check out before realizing that the lenses that I needed are no longer being made by their lab .

Before anyone goes off on the employees there, they are all wonderful. Employees have been working with them for a very long time and very kind. They had no idea that this changes was made until we went to check out otherwise they wouldn’t have let us get this far and would’ve helped us redirect sooner . It’s not their fault. It’s really no one other than the industry and it’s frustrating as hell when you have a very niche prescription that you need filled, but no one can fill it .

Thanks for listening to my rant. I just needed a place to scream essentially.💙

[allthingsfern]

This weekend

Saturday and today (Sunday) I did something I have not done for a while: Two days in a row, I spent over an hour walking and photographing and enjoying. Coincidentally, both times I wound up taking lots of "flower pics." There are lots of flowers around here to choose from, but some of my favorites are roses. Luckily, they are abundant in this region.

In Woodland yesterday, I got to feel part of the public library's rose garden. It is small, but has plenty of lovely, willing rose "models." Today I visited Sacramento's McKinley park, which has a larger, more well-kept rose garden and also has plenty of lovely, willing  rose "models." It was fun to see the families and groups of friends walking around, taking photos of the flowers and of the members of their group. All, except for one with a small point and shoot, were using their phones. I was the lone "photographer," whatever that means, with my hefty camera. But we all shared the fragrant space harmoniously, beautifully.

I share this because since I fractured my arm last year (almost to the day; it happened May 6, 2022), my health and stamina have declined a lot. This decline occurred for several reasons, including, I admit now, a fear of hurting myself with physical activity and mild depression during this last winter’s severe (but much needed) rain and cold.

Now I am finding my way to a healthier, more active place, way of being. I am not thinking about “going back” to any pre-fracture physical or emotional state. That is impossible, since I am a different now. In 5 seconds, in 1 second from now, I am different. I am in constant evolution. I do, however, want that evolution, which, as part of my aging becomes a decline in strength and physical activity, to be healthy and active and strong.

And fucking fun. Always fucking fun.

So yeah, part of this is even relearning how to take photos. I have pain in my right index finger from some mild arthritis and, right now, a gout flare up (yes, in my right index finger) and my right eye’s cataracts are leading me to use my left eye for the viewfinder. My right eye is useless for focusing because it is like looking through a paper towel. Hopefully the surgery sometime this year will help. BTW, the whole left eye for the viewfinder thing is tricky; most cameras (and specifically SLRs & DSLRs) were made for right hand/right eye use.

But, I am doing. I am moving. I am photographing.

And yes, I am having fucking fun through it all.

It is about fucking time I start having fucking fun again, no?