Boiling frogs

It's a week now since I had a corneal implant in my right eye at Cardiff's University Hospital. There cannot be many medical procedures that produce such instant results. Cataracts develop slowly - so slowly you barely realise what you're losing. It's a road where the milestones are few but all the more important when they crop up.

• The day you stop buying newspapers because you've come to terms with the fact that they're a waste of money - you can't read them.
• The day you stop sitting in your 'favourite chair' to watch TV but sit on the floor nearer to the set.
• The day you stop driving.
• The day you realise you don't read in bed any more - actually you don't read at all.
• The day you decide not to go somewhere or do something and you realise you're using poor sight as an excuse.
  

Then comes the day someone does something about it. Now I can close my right eye and look through my untreated left eye and really see what this particular 'boiled frog' put up with. It's a world of yellow fog.

Which is why the greatest revelation after an implant is the rediscovery of BLUE. OK being able to read again is pretty crucial too, but losing most of blue from your colour palette really does affect your relationship with the world around you. Blue is symbolic of sharp focus, of freshness, of life itself - "the blue planet" etc.. Yellow is symbolic of old parchment; a fuzzy yellow is even worse.

So "thank you" to Roger Morgan and the team at Cardiff's University Hospital. I'll be back for the left eye as soon as possible.