After I had hung up my headset at 58 years old I found that the mild cataract problem I had had got a lot worse. There came a point where I could not recognise people across the room and had to ascertain when it was reasonably safe to cross the road when the traffic lights one hundred metres either side were at red.
My eye medicals at the local hospital were a waste of time. Being a pilot the habit of a lifetime would come into play and I would memorise the sight chart as I walked in the door. Rattling off the bottom line scuppered any chances of having an operation.
I had spent a lot of time in China and there there were expats who had had eye surgery with fantastic results. I liaised with some friends in Shanghai as to what the situation was. It seemed favourable so I flew to Shanghai to suss it out.
I arrived on a Thursday; settled for twenty fours hours and the team started.
Monday, 0800 in the Shanghai Eye Hospital, a government organisation. There was a couple of dozen of us and it cost 9 yuan (£1.20) to have a basic eye check. This was not letters or number but arrows pointing in different directions. I failed that miserably and so I was shunted upstairs by my minders to the next stage.
Here there was a sit down and wait, after you had paid 29 yuan for this stage. During this time I was accosted by an elderly lady who suffered from extreme short sight. She had glasses that resembled two small binoculars which narrowed her vision to just about acceptable. She were incapable of differentiating between a Chinese or a Brit so I had a long harangue about the price of noodles, the pavements, landlords et al.
Eventually I fronted up for the full eye test. The was done by an ophthalmic surgeon; I know that because he did my eyes. He told my handler that I needed both cataracts and I had a choice of lens replacements. Both eyes for 1,100 yuan each with English lens or 1,400 with German lenses. Not wishing to look favourably on the EU I opted for the British ones. We discussed corrective lenses and I opted for one near and one distant unit.
They were going to have to be two weeks apart; the first one tomorrow.
Next morning at 0800 I pitched up and handed over 250 yuan for my pre-op medical. This consisted of a series of gorgeous nurses crawling over me taking blood samples, pressure etc etc. my blood pressure was slightly high but my handler explained the reason. With regret I passed that stage and then was briefed by my handler as to what I had to do during the operation.
'Keep still and look at the light.'
I was then on my own in the theatre waiting room. The was a couple of locals waiting as well but I could see the door of three operating theatres so the wait wasn't going to be that long. Meanwhile nurses were coming around and administrating eye drops. Then they were doing it again with a different nurse, and again and again. I found out from my handler that the nurses had only seen brown Chinese eyes before and were taking turns giving me eye drops so they could look into grey green foreigners' ones.
The operation was rapid with no conversation but the shock for me was when the filament of the light I was looking at suddenly came into focus.
My hotel was some distance away so I stayed the night in the hospital, The room was comfortable enough with a 28' TV that only selected Shanghai channels. We wont talk about the evening meal but I had a good nights sleep. Next morning there was a noodle breakfast and at 09:00 hrs they cleaned the place up.
At 10:00 hrs they were standing by the beds as Matron walked in.
She was like something out of the 'Carry on' series but she was in deadly earnest. She went round the room with the nurses quivering in their shoes. The room passed and she announced that I was free to go. They removed the bandage over my eye, gave me a quick eye test, a pair of sunglasses and shooed me out of the door.
Allofasudden I could see the shortcuts on my computer's home page.
Two weeks later they did the other eye and after another week with sunglasses everything was as it was thirty years ago. It was the start of a new life.