Not very long ago, it was not at all unusual to see blind people walking the streets tap-tapping away with their white sticks, being guided by a dog, normally a Labrador, but I have not seen anyone like that in Britain for years, as far as I remember.
That has to be a good thing; it has to mean that we are starting to cure or at least alleviate most types of blindness.
My aunty had cataracts for years when I was a child in the Sixties - it was simply one of those things in life. Some individuals got them when they were getting on and others did not.
My brother’s mother-in-law had cataracts in the late Nineties and she was put on a two year waiting list to have them taken away, but at least she had hope and they were going to be got rid of free of charge.
I do not know of anyone else that has eye trouble except myself. I could not get my glasses clean one day and then a friend said he saw a white spot in one of my eyes. He drove me to the hospital and the doctor said that I had ‘premature senile cataracts’.
Well, I live in Thailand now and he did not use those precise words. He told me that the cataracts were because I was prematurely senile.
I asked him if that was what he actually intended; he looked it up in a book and we both had a hearty laugh about it, although he never actually corrected himself.
My condition turned out to be a little more serious than just cataracts, but when I went from the local hospital to a major hospital in Pattaya, the surgeon saw me within 30 minutes and asked me if I wanted the cataracts removed.
I said that I did and she was prepared to do the operation there and then. I got it put off for 24 hours, but she would have sorted my eye out that day in a 30 minute operation, which does not require anaesthetic. I think that that was marvelous.
We have come a long way from habitually seeing blind people on the street and putting up with cataracts through a two-year waiting list to immediate removal of cataracts by laser surgery in 40-50 years.
At least we have in the Developed World and in the East as well, if you have the money. There are still millions of people in Asia and especially in Africa suffering blindness and partial blindness for the sake of an easy 30 minute operation.
Two weeks after my operation, my other eye started to cloud over. It was as if it had been holding on with its last scrap of strength until I got the other one sorted out.
I had that one done last year and when I was allowed to take off my patch and look about me with two good eyes again for the first time in a decade, I could not believe that I had forgotten how bright the world actually is and that I had not noticed how drab my world had become.
If you are worried about an eye operation, do not be. What you will experience when you can see properly again will make all the worry seem ludicrous and if you have the chance to give someone their vision back, please do it.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, and is now involved with 500 Delicious Diabetic Recipes. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Easy Diabetic Meals