by Sybil Johnson
This post will be short. I had cataract surgery a week or so ago and have another coming up on Monday. It has been an interesting experience so far. I’m sure a lot of people who are reading this have had this surgery. Eye surgery is something I’ve never experienced before. I suspect some of this may end up in a story someday.
You’re awake during it, though they do give you anti-anxiety meds (what I like to call “happy juice”). Lots of lights and maybe some murmur of conversation (don’t really remember that part), instructions to look some direction and suddenly it’s over. They give you a shield for your eye and you’re on your way home.
This started me thinking about the origin of the word “cataract”. It’s a clouding of the eye’s natural lens, but I’ve also heard the term used for areas in the Nile river where there are waterfalls and rocky areas that make passage more difficult. The First Cataract on the Nile is just south of Aswan. There are six total.
Apparently, they both have the same word origin. From Latin cataracta "waterfall," from Greek katarhaktēs "waterfall, broken water; a kind of portcullis." So the eye cataract is sort of like looking through a waterfall or through a portcullis.
There’s your bit of wisdom for the day. I thought it was interesting, anyway.
While I’m recovering, I’m resting my eyes a bit and listening to some podcasts and an audiobook with an AI-generated voice. The AI-generated voice is okay to listen to, but there are what I consider to be unnatural pauses that annoy me a tiny bit.
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