Writing this down because maybe one of my kids will be asking about this when they hit their 60s.

One of the side effects of the surgery September 2025 when my retina had nearly torn through is that at the very center of my vision, when looking at small straight lines I tend to see double. Just right in that one small center spot, but it makes it hard to read unless I turn my head slightly to go one-eyed at it. The first ten or twelve months, every line of text being read split into a double of itself going off at different angles. Still does a little when I’m tired, but much better than it was.

So I wondered if I just needed to wait it out; I’d been told some people take as long as two years to recover from that surgery, and now I could see why.

After a recent comment from the retina surgeon about maybe I’ll need prism glasses, our very good optometrist was checking it out today.

I asked him, Dr. Google (I shrugged a, yeah, like that’s a good source) says that prism glasses can make the problem worse over time?

Actually, he told me, that’s true and I was just about to mention that. So we only correct it the least amount we can so the eye muscles don’t quit working as hard.

Then he did a test I’ve never seen before and asked me if I saw one square or two. Upright or tilted.

Two. Tilt.

Which one tilts?

The black one tilts left, the gray one’s upright.

He chuckled: there was no black one.

He put something over my glasses on the left and added one on the right. And now?

One! They came together! Gray!

He wrote me a prescription but told me not to fill it until I’d seen the cataract surgeon for the other eye, because then I’d be starting all over.

So that appointment finally got scheduled.

But that brief moment of a single square clear and completely upright totally sold me on getting those glasses if I still need them later.

So weird. Everything else, I just, y’know, see. As one does.

Meantime, yay for lines of text that go straight across.