A friend will be having cataract surgery in a couple of weeks. He’s a sixty-plus guy, his hobbies are mainly hiking, fishing, and woodworking. He’s married and his wife and two daughters live with him so helping out with cooking or cleaning or around the house or anything of that nature won’t work.
My go-to ‘Get Well’ gifts are 1) Edible treats and 2) stuff to help pass time while not very mobile but 1) this guy has NO taste for sweet things. No chocolate, no cookies, no candy of any kind… And 2) is usually books and puzzle mags, well, magazines in general. But…not too good to emphasize using eyes, right?
So far my only ideas are grapes and cherries and such. And possibly a book on tape?
Post-surgery, things will be brighter than he’s used to, particularly out of doors. This may or may not bother him, and you may or may not think it fits, but that was the first thing I thought of, particularly for someone who likes the out of doors.
Unless he’s having cataracts installed, he’s going to be seeing better than he has in years. A high quality photo book, or things in fine print will make him giddy. At least stuff like that made the people I know pretty happy post-op. Most recently, my 70+ friend said, “Oh, so that’s what my high-definition TV looks like! What an amazing picture!” (She had the TV for over a year prior).
So, sunglasses are a great idea, and things visual will be lots of fun to look at!
He’ll only be down for a day or two if it’s the same surgery had by the people I know. Sorry if there’s something different of which I’m unaware.
I hear that this surgery reverses much of the loss of blue colors, and imagine that colorful things especially with intense blues would be wonderful to behold. Better than photographs or printed images, which are made with inks having a limited gamut or range of colors they represent, would be objects that are inherently beautifully colored, especially in the blues. I’m thinking of butterfly collections, unusual flowers, minerals (especially some of the oxysalts and the metallic compounds, or big iridium crystals if you’re a billionaire), even a kaleidoscope. Also, I bet a 60 degree optical prism would be neat (Edmund Industrial Optics would sell them if you don’t find one elsewhere). I bet these things would be easy to enjoy even if the vision isn’t stably sharp yet, as it is their unusual color and not their fine details that make them enjoyable.
I popped in with the same suggestion, but for another reason: If the friend has been wearing corrective lenses, often times as part of cataract surgery your vision gets “fixed” (my MIL had to tell them how near/farsighted she wanted to remain). The friend has probably never been able to wear off-the-shelf, stylin’ sunglasses. OK, a 60ish fellow probably doesn’t care that much about “stylin’”, but he might get a kick out of it anyway.
Maybe a video of The Matrix and some sunglass that’ll make him look like Keanu Reeves’ character
Wow, I’d lost track of this thread. Thank you all for your suggestions!
In fact, the guy JUST had his second eye done last month. Both surgeries went fine.
AND I found a present this time that he seemed to really, really like: I found a little company that sells audio tapes of old time radio dramas and comedies and all. I got him several tapes each of The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, and a couple comedies I don’t remember the titles of right now. He said they really helped pass the time the first few days when he was supposed to not use his eyes very much.
Anyway, I thought I’d mention it in case anyone else ever is hunting for a suitable present. For someone younger, maybe a current book on tape would be better, but most cataract surgery patients are older.
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