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20/20 vision

Cataracts are not a nice thing to have but actually for you they've given you your eyesight back.


Jul 03,2015
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Jackie: For this week's podcastsinenglish.com we're talking about problems with vision. With me is Jemma, hi Jemma.

 

Jemma: Hello

 

Jackie: Now it may seem odd to speak to Jemma about this because she wears neither glasses nor contact lenses, do you?

 

Jemma: No. Not... not now.

 

Jackie: Not now. But it hasn't always been the case, has it?

 

Jemma: No, that's right. I mean... from when I was very young I have worn glasses because I was extremely short-sighted so all of my life up until the past two years I had always had to wear either glasses or contact lenses.

 

Jackie: You probably can't remember then when you first started wearing glasses.

 

Jemma: I was probably only about 18 months, 2 years old.

Jackie: So it was something that you've lived with all your life.

Jemma: You have to get used to it but you accept it as part of you, but there were times it was very frustrating because I enjoyed sport and therefore I couldn't swim properly because you take your glasses off and you can't see where you're going. And things like netball and hockey, which are quite physical games, I was always concerned that I might be accidentally hit in the face so I think it did affect the amount of sport I could do um... which was disappointing.

Jackie: But then you started to wear contact lenses. Did that not help?

Jemma: It helped a bit but initially, in probably about the 1970s, they were very hard, glass, solid, contact lenses.

 

Jackie: Not like the nice soft ones you get nowadays.

 

Jemma: Not the soft ones, no that's right. So they were very solid contact lenses and you still had to take a lot of care with them, you had to clean them twice a day, make sure your eye didn't get any infections and things like that. As the years have gone by the contact lenses have become much softer, much easier to wear so you could put them in and not be aware that you were wearing them. They were much more comfortable to wear which was lovely.

 

Jackie: However [laughs] you wear neither glasses nor contact lenses but you can see alright, so tell me what happened.

 

Jemma: Well, I then developed cataracts which is a cloudiness of the lens, I suppose 3 years ago, and it got to the extent that in my left eye it was so cloudy I was actually having difficulty seeing so I went to see um... the opthalmic surgeon who suggested I have a cataract extraction done. And we discussed the different ways of altering my sight so that I didn't have to wear glasses or contact lenses at all and because my right eye, although the cataract was just developing, he said I may as well have them both done, sort of 6 months apart, so what he did was when he put the lens back in, a new lens, a synthetic lens, I use my left eye for long vision and I use my right eye for short vision.

 

Jackie: Now hold on, let me get this right [both laugh] Are you telling me that each eye has a different vision?

 

Jemma: Absolutely

Jackie: You're short-sighted in one eye and long-sighted in the other eye.

Jemma: Yes. So if I close my right eye I can see into the distance absolutely fine and if I use my right eye and close my left eye, I see near- sighted but obviously I didn't go round with one eye shut; the brain just copes and takes over and so it works absolutely fantastically so I now just don't use glasses or lenses at all and it's just fantastic. It's changed the sports I do, I feel so much more confident, I can go swimming. It's just lovely, a real sense of freedom.

 

Jackie: Cataracts are not a nice thing to have but actually for you they've given you your eyesight back.

 

Jemma: They have indeed. You're absolutely right, yes.


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