Distance Vision

A couple of days into the new year, I had eye surgery in northern Virginia to permanently lessen my dependence on glasses and contacts.

Refractive lens exchange – – sometimes called custom lens replacement, clear lens replacement, or CLR (pronounced like “clear”) – – is an outpatient surgery that replaces the natural lens of your eye with an artificial interocular lens. Patients undergo in-depth testing and receive lenses tailored to their individual needs. The procedure stabilizes your vision, prevents you from developing cataracts in the future, and is supposed to correct for near-sightedness, far-sightedness, astigmatism, and reading prescriptions.

The jury’s still out on my up-close vision as my eyes heal and the swelling reduces, but so far my view to the horizon has been sharper than ever.

Until recently, elective eye surgery sounded to me like an idea straight out of a horror movie. I vaguely remember in the early 2000s watching one of the Saw movies with my brother and the normally unflappable me almost having to leave the theatre because someone was strapped to a chair with their eyes pried open by some metal contraptions. It was literally the worst thing I could imagine and I couldn’t get it out of my head for years (or ever?). I’m not even going to Google factcheck what I’m saying here because I’m just that bothered about it. Tell me nothing.

But over the past couple of years, my eyes have become so dry I’ve been physically unable to wear contact lenses for more than a few minutes at a time. A couple months ago, one contact lens fell right OFF MY EYE and onto the bedroom floor. If I hadn’t seen it occur, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. And I was already on prescription eye drops for autoimmune dry eye.

So, just wear glasses, right? Frankly, glasses are not my jam. Although I can’t say they look bad on everyone, I feel like glasses make me look 10 years older. And they make it hard to put on makeup, ski, swim, or wear sunglasses.

The eye surgeon put my worries to rest by assuring me there was no way to “go blind” from CLR since the optic nerve isn’t involved. Unless, he ventured, you got an eye infection afterwards that you ignored and didn’t treat until you went blind. My facial reaction subsequently eliminated the remotest possibility in his mind I would do something like that. CLR seemed like my best option to solve my dry eye/looking old in glasses woes, even though it was not covered by my vision insurance.

Since I got the surgery, it has been wonderful to drive without glasses and no longer experience that old familiar “pulling” that characterizes the multiple focal points of astigmatism. Then I glance at my instrument panel and see that the speedometer and gas gauge are blurry. I shift my eyes towards the radio screen and can barely see what song is on.

This struggle will be familiar to many, but it was certainly unfamiliar to me; having never been able to do without astigmatism correction since my early 30s, the presbyopia that causes people to start holding reading material at arm’s length in their 40s snuck up on me. It was never a stand-alone problem like it is now.

I was aware near vision would be the last thing to come on-board after CLR. I’ve tried to be patient as my brain reconnects all the dots. I also knew it was possible I’d need a second, minor procedure like LASIK to fine-tune my results. My eye surgeon said we need to wait until February when any residual prescription stabilizes so we can determine how to proceed. In the interim, I’ve been wearing cheaters at work and to see my phone, and instead of feeling like I just traded one problem for another, trying to focus (pun intended) on things a little further down the road.

Temporarily favoring the long view for what’s right in front of me makes sense right now. It’s a good strategy for a calendar year in which I am going to wrap up my fourth diplomatic tour and launch into long-term training for our next assignment in Burma. Although I’ve been busy lately in my day job – the post-holiday period seems to portend an extra influx of new international parental child abduction cases as children don’t return to classes and parents realize there’s been a retention by the other parent – I’ve also needed to juggle what comes next.

And I can liken my eye situation at present to the part of a tour when you still have a lot to do in your regular day job, but it’s getting uncomfortable to focus solely on what’s in front of you at the expense of what’s coming. Reality begins to sink in that you need to shift to “multifocal vision:” cast attention at what’s close-up, what’s coming closer, and what’s on the horizon. For me this is my domestic tour, onward training, and PCSing to Burma, respectively.

I’ve worked over the past two weeks to finalize my onward training schedule at the Foreign Service Institute, from the start of Burmese language class this coming September and working backwards through August, July, and June. The goal is to make sure I have plenty of time for the consular refresher tradecraft I need, as well as southeast Asia regional area studies and courses to do more generally with management and leadership topics not specific to consular work. I’ve had to look up courses and arrange and rearrange based on offerings in the time I have available.

In my lookahead I also predicted the need to work in annual leave. Once I get into 10 months of Burmese, almost immediately after which we will packout and PCS to Burma, there won’t be any time left for leisurely drives across country (or likely even a quick flight). And during language it’s almost impossible to take leave without a negative effect on your progress.

So these days I’m likely to be staring into the distance thinking about when to renew my diplomatic passport and Virginia driver’s license, and when to apply for a Burmese visa… and what consumables do officers buy for Burma?

Hoping my close-up vision will be nice and in-focus by the time warmer weather arrives so I can wrap up my Children’s Issues tour on a strong note.

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