I can't help you directly, but what I know is all of my friends/family who have had cataract surgery have been extremely nervous before hand and then wondered why they didn't do it sooner! Follow the before/after care instructions faithfully.
I have a bad case of keratoconus, which means my eyes are super pointy. My astigmatism correction starts about where the standard eye doctor equipment ends, so I've been seeing a specialist for a number of years now. My vision hasn't been correctable by glasses or soft contacts for maybe 15 years now and I wear specialty "scleral" hard lenses the size of soup bowls
. They are called scleral because they sit on the white part of your eyes.
For some people with keratoconus the end result is a cornea transplant, and often the non-corrected vision is about 20/40 -- or about what I had in 7th grade (umm... 45+ years ago?). I finally grew to accept the idea but because my case is so progressive I am not considered a candidate and so I had to accept the disappointment in that. My specialist and I hope that technology will continue and that all is not lost for me, there is a new treatment that did not exist at the time of my diagnosis. Again, with my progressive issues it is not a viable treatment for me.
In terms of the best possible bad news, I will always have light/dark, I will always have color, I will always have large shapes (a brown door in a white wall is a large shape). But I'm losing my ability to focus. Each eye separately has double vision issues. I wake up each day completely and totally legally blind. Forget seeing the E on the eye chart, I can't even see the chart. My contacts are set for a 3-foot distance, that allows me to sew, play on the computer, cook, etc. I have glasses for distance that take over around 6 feet, so that 3-6 distance is hard on me. Today, this year, and maybe for another 3-5 years I can still drive but that won't last.
Get the surgery! You have the options. There are really rare cases where things go wrong, but mostly your life will be vastly improved.