A Painter Reborn

Through the Eyes of a Patient: A Painter Reborn

The colors leapt out like old friends.

Bright vivid colors that Sandra Honn had once proudly painted onto canvas, but that she hadn't enjoyed in the years she's faced the blurred vision that comes with cataracts.

A laser and the steady hands of Dr. Emilio M. Justo did more than just remove the cataracts and restore her original perfect vision. The laser cataract surgery reinvigorated the artist that she never thought she would be again.

"I am a painter and I have a lot of my own pictures on my wall," she said. "And here I am walking by them - and I looked at one of these pictures. And oh my gosh these colors are so pretty. The colors I haven't seen in a couple of years."

Sandra never needed glasses until into her 40s, when she attempted to wear contacts, which would get stuck on her eye. Her struggle with vision caused her desire to paint to diminish. The bright colors no longer drew her in, and she began to even struggle to see signs along the roadway.

"I am really excited to get back to painting again," she said, as she reviewed photos of recent trips that will soon be splashed brilliantly on canvas: A sunset, a snow-capped mountain, the ocean and the sky. "It is more exciting now that I can see what I have painted."

"My surgery was just amazing," she said. "When I was going back to the practice for a check up after surgery, I drove right past - I was so busy reading the signs I was never before able to read. I was having so much trouble with seeing colors."

READ MORE ON OUR CATARACT STORIES PAGE.