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Palo, you were talking about your Mother-in-law, needing cataract surgery, so that brought something to mind...

Yes, here we go with a cataract story...

This happens when my parents are still living in Chicago and me and hubby and kids were now at Ft. Bragg North Carolina...I mention this, because one needs to know why I could not physically assist my parents on this one...

When dad went for an eye examine, they found that he had cataracts in both eyes, and that one was really ripe, and ready to be removed..the other one needed to grow a little before it could be removed...

Now mom did not know how to drive...dad always did all driving...so when dad had to go to the hospital to have the first cataract removed, mom and dad went to the hospital, on the public bus(Called the CTA, for Chicago Transit Authority)...the surgery went fine, dad was fine, and they returned home a few days later, again on the CTA bus(dad felt it was an unnecessary expense to take a taxi home from the hospital, as he was feeling fine)...Had I been living in Chicago at the time, I would have picked them both up, and taken them home...

Now a few months later, the second cataract was ripe and big enough to be removed, so dad was again scheduled for cataract surgery, to be done sometime during the week...the weekend before he was go to in to the hospital, he and mom decided to visit the Museum of Science and Industry on Sunday...this happened in the middle of the winter...they did their tour of the Museum, and were coming down the many stairs, when mom slipped on some ice, and slide down several steps, and landed smack dab on the sidewalk on her face...

Dad rushed down, to assist her and help her up, but he also slipped on the ice on the sidewalk, and he fell on top of mom...a young couple had witnessed this whole chain of events, and they rushed down to help this middle aged couple floundering on the slippery sidewalk...

Dad was a big man, and when they tried to help him up, and off of mom, these two young people also slipped and fell on top of dad...and poor mom was underneath the whole pile, on her face...

The whole incident, which started out as a possibly serious fall, wound giving all four participants the giggles, who found the whole situation to now be something out of 'Laurel and Hardy'...the four of them lay in a heap laughing at the silly image they were projecting...

Finally they all composed themselves, and settled down, and slowly and cautiously one by one, go up off of the ice...Mom and Dad thanked this couple for their assistance, they all hugged and went on their way..(Funny how, in a instant you can have an experience with someone you did not know just minutes before, and after that experience you are hugging each other)...anyway no one was injured, and life went on...

Now Mom always bruised very easily...just pinch her, and she would have a bruise...so she and dad knew that within a few days, her face would look as if she had been in a fight, and sure enought that is what happened...moms face was apparently quite a big black and blue bruised face...

Now a day or so after the incident at the museum, dad was scheduled to go into the hospital and have his second cataract taken out...same routine, they took the bus to the hospital....

And the next day, dad was to have the second cataract taken out..now they gave him some sort of shot, near his eye, before they took him into surgery...same routine as with the first cataract...but for some reason, the whole area around his eye really swelled up bad, and they could not do the surgery...he had some sort of a reaction...

So they kept him for a few hours, to make sure that the reaction was just local, around his eye, and not systemic which could affect his other organs...Satisfied, that it was only a local reaction, they decided to send him home, and reschedule the cataract surgery in about two weeks...

So mom and dad got him packed up and ready to go home...Now by this time, a few days after the museum incident, moms face was really badly bruised...and the whole area around dads eye was all red, and puffy and still swelled up...Now had I been still living in Chicago, I would have picked them up from the hospital...But they decided to again go home on the CTA bus, never realizing how they looked together...

They got on the bus, sat down, and noticed that folks were really giving them the once over, and then it finally dawned on them...There they sat, together, on the bus...she with a badly bruised face, and he with the whole area around his eye, all red, ,and swelled up...

Well, obviously, they looked like a middle aged couple, who had had a knockdown, dragged out, physical fight with each other, and their respectives faces, showed the damage inflicted...Normally dad, never being the shy one, would have just gotten up and explained the situation to the bus passengers...

But this story was too long(as one can see from my yakking) and too complicated, so he just sat there, chuckling to himself, and wondering what the bus passengers were thinking...he really got a kick out of that...

In the end, two weeks later, he had the second cataract removed, with no more odd reactions to the drugs...Once both cataracts were removed, Dad now had perfect vision...because of course, when they removed the cataract, they insert a corrective lens, and dad now no longer needed the glasses, which he had worn since he was about 8 yrs old...He found that experience, to be glassless, to be odd..

Dad always then went around, claiming that he had 'plastic' eyes, because there was a plastic lens in his eye, replacing the cataract...that is when he went out and bought those silly glasses, that have those big plastic eyeballs on springs in them...he would wear those silly glasses, and comment, "Look, I have plastic eyes"...he even took several pictures of himself, wearing those goofy glasses, and sent them to all his friends and relatives, showing how he looked after his cataract surgery with his new plastic eyes...

My dad, what a fun guy he was...