One eye done, six more weeks until the other, and I feel completely lopsided

Right eye was done two weeks ago and it is a MIRACLE, I keep reading road signs out loud to my husband like a child. Whites are white again, I had no idea how brown everything had gone.

The problem is the left eye, which is not booked until the 3rd of June. My glasses are now wrong for the new eye, so I have sharp-and-blurry with them on and bright-and-dim with them off. Went down the porch steps yesterday and misjudged the last one, caught the rail, gave myself a proper fright. Pouring tea has become a two hand job.

Six weeks of this? How did everyone else manage the in between stage, glasses or no glasses? I did not expect the waiting eye to be the hard part.

Five week gap for me last year, and yes, the in between was honestly the worst bit of the whole business. What saved me: my optician popped the right lens out of my old glasses and put plain glass in it, took ten minutes and cost next to nothing. Balance came back to something workable within a couple of days of that.

Also bought a pair of cheap readers from the chemist for the new eye. Not pretty. Worked.

Be careful on stairs and kerbs especially, the depth judgment is genuinely off, that near miss of yours is the standard experience so treat the handrail as compulsory for now.

In the same boat right now, eight week gap for me, halfway through. The lens out of the old glasses trick works. It does get easier, the first fortnight was the worst of it.

June, this thread could have been written by me a few years back, right down to reading the road signs out loud. My two eyes were done a few weeks apart and I remember the gap as the strangest stretch of the whole thing: one eye living in the future, one stuck in the fog, and my poor brain splitting the difference on every stair.

Harold's suggestion is the one that got me through too, and it is worth asking your optician about sooner rather than later. I put what I learned about the gap, and about how different the second operation feels once you know what is coming, into having the second eye done, which might make June the 3rd feel less like a cliff.

One thing I will add as moderator: if the imbalance is making you unsafe rather than just annoyed, near misses on stairs count, ring the clinic and tell them. They can sometimes move things, and they would always rather adjust a date than hear about a fall. That is their call to make, not the forum's, but only if they know.

Coming back to finish the story. Second eye done on the 3rd, and everyone who said the second one is easier was right, I was calmer, it felt quicker, and the balance came back within days. Both eyes matching is even better than the first miracle. To anyone reading this from inside the gap: it is temporary, borrow Harold's glasses trick, hold the handrail, and it is so worth it at the other end.