["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published July 7, 2025] 2025
Not to disparage a man I have loved and been married to for decades, but he is truly the worst patient ever.
My husband has always had a "Do not feed the lions" approach to health care and will deny all symptoms even for an affliction he actually sought medical care for. So I'll say, "What did Doctor Death say about your esophageal paralysis?" And he'll shrug, "It didn't come up.
My husband has had two separate cancers, along with a heart attack exacerbated by a serious head injury when he did a face plant into the armoire en route to the floor, milliseconds after insisting, "It's just heartburn!"
So talking him into undergoing the cataract surgery that he desperately needed was a multi-year battle.
Olof is a former Air Force pilot, an occupation for which one needed perfect vision, so getting him to accept that his eyesight was failing has been difficult. It had always given me an added feeling of security over the years when we were on commercial flights knowing that Olof could probably land many large aircraft in an emergency. But after a certain point, I came to realize that this would only work if he remembered to bring his reading glasses into the cockpit. Otherwise he'd be asking the flight attendant, "Does that say "up" or "down"?"
Right around the time that Olof turned 40, I began to notice that he was leaving 70% tips at restaurants. Olof is a generous tipper but it dawned on me that the basis of his largesse was that he could no longer read the bill. This got even worse when we lived in Sweden and many of the restaurants were so low light that I'd have to read him the menu. The waiter would arrive and inquire, "And what will your father have?" (Olof and I are exactly the same age).
Olof was the senior engineer at his company so I was surprised some years ago to get a call from a member of his team who pleaded with me to make Olof get reading glasses. Given how technical the data was on the projects they were working on, the inability to read specifications was making meetings increasingly problematical.
Maps were probably the biggest problem of all in the pre-phone app era. When we lived in Sweden, we traveled a fair amount. Fortunately, Olof had a seeing-eye wife who wore progressive lenses so that when Olof and I got really, really lost and ended up in parts of Old Tallinn that probably even the Estonians have forgotten about, I could actually read the fine print on a map. Even though Olof was by this time the owner of reading glasses, they somehow always ended up getting left back at the hotel whenever he and I are strolling around a new city. He may have been bludgeoned into getting them, but he was never going to admit he needed them.
But over time, the necessity for reading glasses and even computer glasses came to be a part of his life, as did not being able to find any of the 10 pairs that he owned at any given time. He didn't matter how many pairs we acquired. Three months after I sold my former car, the neighbor who bought it called me and said he had found a pair of my husband s reading glasses under the front seat.
Fast forward into the retirement years. Olof was admitting that driving at night and in rainy conditions was getting harder. He went to renew his driver's license and the DMV eye test lady said, "I m going to pass you this time, but it's a gift."
Three years ago, I started booking him appointments along with me when I went for my own yearly eye exam. The opthalmologist said, "there is no way on God s green earth you would pass a DMV eye exam at this point. You need cataract surgery."
So you re thinking Olof said, "Yes. Of course. Sign me up."
But you would be wrong.
Given our ages, we had a number of friends who had had cataract surgery, every one of whom raved about the difference it had made and how happy they were they had done it. They could see! Colors regained their actual hues and shapes their actual dimensions. It was so easy, they said. You do one eye, then the other two weeks later. The most annoying part is a month's worth of three different daily eye drops in each eye afterwards.
But three annual eye appointments went by before Olof finally consented to the surgery. He kept telling our wonderful opthalmologist that he would "think about it and get back to her" which is Olof-ese for "you'll never hear from me again."
I've always felt that since Olof is a grown man, I should give him the respect to allow him to make these decisions himself. Even if it meant that my life, and his, and those of everyone else on the road were in extreme danger, especially at night or in the rain, or God forbid both.
But finally I'd had enough. I called and made him an appointment with the opthalmologist and told her Olof was ready to proceed. "Really?" she said, genuinely surprised. "He agreed?"
And when I informed Olof of "his" decision, I was expecting pushback. I had all my arguments ready. I had rehearsed. But before I could get two of those words out, he said "okay."
I was shocked. "What do you mean, 'okay'?" I said, suspicious.
"I mean, okay, I'll do it," he replied.
Both eyes have now been done. I kept a detailed chart on the front of fridge for the schedule of all the drops. The morning after the first surgery, he could read the newspaper with no glasses. It was a miracle. The second eye went just as well.
I'm obviously incredibly pleased and relieved. The streets of San Diego are safe again. Olof has become one of the world's foremost proponents of cataract surgery.
But could we have done this three years ago?
