77-year-old Michigan woman 'can look everywhere now'

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Goldie Kline, 77, of Bronson , Mich. , had a sneaking suspicion about four years ago that her eyes were starting to fail her.

"My glasses weren't doing me justice," said Kline. "Everything was so cloudy. I felt like I couldn't clean my eyes."

She didn't fret much about it, though. Your eyes go as you get old, she told herself. It was sad that she saw less and less clearly across the lake from her small cottage, but why bother?

So on it went, with Kline's vision deteriorating. She suspected it might be cataracts, based on what her sister went through when she had them. "She told me what they were like, so I thought I might, too, yes," Kline said.

Then one of the lenses fell out of her glasses. Forced to the ophthalmologist, Kline soon learned she had cataracts in both eyes.

"I was relieved, really. I thought, well, if they remove it, I'll be able to see better," she said. "I had thought it could be something perhaps even more serious than a cataract."

Within a couple of months, she had surgery to remove the cataract from her right eye. The medical expenses were paid by EyeCare America , the charitable foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Kline was surprised how effortlessly the surgery went. "They kept me in there not any more than about two, three hours, and then everything was over, and I went home," she said.

A couple of months later, her doctor removed the cataract from her left eye as well.

Her eyes' natural lenses, clouded by cataracts, were replaced with single-focus lenses that allow Kline to see from a distance.

She said the improvement to her eyesight is "remarkable." She sees better now than she has for decades, although she needs glasses to see things up-close.

"I can look everywhere now," Kline said. "I can see across my lake. I can see things I couldn't see before. The leaves on the trees, I realize, are individual, they aren't just all together."

There have been no side effects from the surgery. "I thought I might have, but I've had nothing like that," she said. "I have glaucoma in both eyes. I thought I would have a lot of problems, but I don't have any problems at all with any of it. I put medication in my eyes for the glaucoma, and that's it."

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