My vision story -- I have a condition called Keratoconus (KC). Basically I have super pointy eyeballs and have a number of problems related to that like no depth perception and the ability to see double images with just one eye! Glasses are not enough to correct my vision and haven't been for about 20 years, I wear specialty contacts which change the shape of my eyes plus glasses for distance and other corrections. Right now readers only make blurry things larger and not clearer. Bringing up the size on my computer monitor helps somewhat but with the double vision and such, it is still very difficulty for me to read. My apologies for typos and such.
Uncorrected I am legally blind (I can't read the E on the eye chart), corrected I still have a hard time with small print and seeing stitches and things like that I will always have light and dark, and colors, and "large shapes" (like a brown door in a white wall) but basically am largely losing my ability to focus I can't see for miles and miles, but I could see well enough. Last year at this time I was able to drive from Seattle to Peoria, going 80 through states that allow that... About in March of last year I noticed that signs I could read when we first moved here were now harder to read. In May I was having difficulties reading the smaller freeway signs and took myself off first the freeways and then the surface streets. Before leaving Seattle my eye doctor told me that I would be needing cataract surgery probably sooner rather than later, and that some of the issues could come on pretty rapidly. Although it is unusual that at this stage in my KC, that can also result in rapid eye changes. Although my descent has been pretty steady and my last five years have been pretty stable, back in 2008 I had a period of rapid change and had to go contactless for about 3 months.
The cataract surgery won't result in more vision, but what I have will be clearer which will enable a better prescription for my contacts. The issue is that my eyes need to be in their natural state and so I can't wear the contacts for 6-8 weeks before surgery. Then after surgery I will have a longer than usual healing time. We don't want the suction of the contacts pulling out my implanted lenses.
I needed a physical pre-surgery which my doctor would not sign off. Primarily my diabetes was way out of control and there were a couple other more minor areas of concern. I am doing well but haven't rescheduled the surgery yet. I am hoping to have corrected vision by the end of the year but they give me no guarantees of either timing or what I can expect my corrected vision to be... If I am not going to be eligible for surgery this year, I will get new contacts to correct as well as I can for a better quality of existence (like me able to sew and/or maybe actually watch instead of listen to tv) and go through the 2 months of blindness (again), which I am trying to avoid.