Recently I had my 10th eye surgery, they removed a severe cataract from the right eye in an attempt to stop the chronic eye pain. And if this doesn't work then I am told the only options left are to remove the eye, or continue to deal with the pain.

The operation itself was a bit of an ordeal. The doctor started cutting before the pain medication and sedatives kicked in. But thats all over and done with, and I can get started healing and hopefully having less pain. Right?

At the post op exam I learned with the cataract gone, and drops to dialate the pupil I now have light sensitivity in that eye where before it was thought there was no living retina and that the optic nerve had atrophied.

While I still have minimal vision in the left eye (20/800 and a less than 30° visual field) for a while, early onset macular degeneration won't leave me with much. Any improvement in the other eye can only be good right?

So far that doesn't seem to be the case. No matter how many friends and family tell me how much of a miracle this is, and how excited they seem to be. I just can't seem to care.

With the minimal vision in the left eye, having light perception in the right doesn't make a positive impact. All it means so far is constant pain from even moderately bright lights, more eye strain, more eye strain induced migraines, and a lingering feeling that I'm an awful person for not appreciating this 'miracle'.

I'm already sick and tired of having to smile and nod when told how great this is, and how "doesn't this mean you can get a new prosthetic eye to fix it?" And then having to say yet again that the technology isnt quite there, even if it was I could never afford it, and thinking that family and friends were past thinking of me as someone who needs fixing.