Susie’s Cataract Surgery Experience

“I couldn’t believe how beautiful everything was. Everything is so much brighter. It’s like the light is all of a sudden shining on you. It’s shocking what I can see now.”

That’s how Susie describes the difference in her vision after having cataract surgery at Virginia Eye Consultants.

Susie is part of the Concierge and Front Desk Team at Virginia Eye Consultants and enjoys helping vision patients every day. Despite that, she didn’t realize her own cataract trouble until her coworker Marti suggested she get her eyes checked. Marti had noticed that Susie mentioned how glare bothered her when driving at night and that the computer screen hurt her eyes. Susie thought she was too young to have cataracts, but her eye exam revealed that was exactly what was impacting her vision.

A few years prior, Susie’s mother-in-law had her cataracts removed at Virginia Eye Consultants. It was bittersweet because, not long after that, Susie’s mother-in-law learned she was terminally ill. It was a true gift for her to be able to see the faces of her family so clearly during the last months of her life. Susie said “It turned out that I had my cataract surgery on her birthday. I thought about her all day and I was just as overjoyed with my vision as I recall her being.”

There’s a painting in the hallway at Virginia Eye Consultants that Susie has walked past and admired for years. It wasn’t until after her cataract surgery that she could really see the colors. “I looked at that painting and it blew me away. I saw ocean blue and vibrant pink. I had never seen the true colors before and I couldn’t stop looking at it. I realized how dull colors had been for me before having my cataracts removed.”

Soon after her surgery, she was able to share that experience again with another patient who had just had her cataracts removed. They stood together in front of the painting, both in awe by how different it looked to them now.

Susie recalled “We’re not the only ones who have done that. I’ve seen other patients at that painting over the years and, until now, I never really understood what they were experiencing.”

Something she didn’t anticipate was people noticing how blue her eyes are now.

“People come up to me now and say ‘Wow, your eyes look so blue today!’ That’s something I really didn’t expect. It’s like taking a foggy amber glass off your eyes.”

Susie has always been proud to be a Virginia Eye Consultants employee, and she is even prouder to be a patient, having experienced first hand the difference cataract surgery can make.