Too Young for a Cataract

I'm sharing my story with you today to make you aware, for the safety of yourself and your children, whether on the shipping or receiving end.

I was 16 years old and it was Halloween night in the year 2000. A girlfriend and I were walking to another friends house when a car pulled over packed with boys from our class. They informed us that they were out shooting houses with paint ball guns and that we better watch out because they were going to try to shoot us in the butt. Haha, we thought they were kidding, hoped they were kidding. They weren't though, they took off and one of them, I still do not know which one to this day, started shooting. I was the very un-lucky recipient of a paint ball to the eye. Immediately upon being shot my vision went red, I thought I was bleeding, but I later found out it was red paint. The boys packed me into their already packed car to drive me to my parents. They let me out and drove off, presumably quite scared. My dad rushed me to the hospital, and everything sort of becomes a blur after that.

Millions (or so it seemed) of tests and a couple months later, it was confirmed that I had developed a cataract from the injury. Something that would never heal completely. My world from my right eye was almost completely black. I was and still am terribly distraught over the whole situation. I have 20/20 vision in my left eye, and used to in my right eye. Now I will never see as I was able to again because of a stupid accident. I know it could have been worse and I tell myself that every day. We all did crazy things as teenagers right?

Close to 1 year later, I ended up getting cataract surgery at the Cincinnati Eye Institute. Which is 8 hours from me, but because Dr. Osher there is so good that is where my opthamologist wanted me to go. He was able to get my vision back to a somewhat normal state, nothing that glasses or a contact could correct though. I've had to deal with only being able to see out of certain parts of my right eye, very strange. Fortunately my left eye is 20/20, otherwise it would be much more difficult.

Here I am, nearly 9 years later. I decided to write about it today because I had my yearly appointment this morning. It turns out that over the past 4 years I've lost 6 lines of vision. I now have to go back and get another surgery in just 3 weeks. This is something that will likely haunt me for the rest of my life.

A simple teenaged accident, that will never go away.