Cataract Surgery in the 21st Century

I think this was supposed to be a whole lot more dramatic...cataract surgery, where they take the knife to your eyeballs. The doctor has a serious, mournful look on his face. A combination of sincere pity, and hand-rubbing excitement. Not so in the 21st century. These doctors look through you,analyzing measurements, surface curvatures, ratios, circumferences, throughput, and God knows what else. Probably muscle tension, mileage, and RBIs.

My question is, what will I see while I'm wide awake? That moment, after the incision is made, after the breakup and vacuuming of the "cloudy lens material" (which sounds so disgustingly "dirty-carpet"). I think I will be momentarily totally blind. No lens...? What can you see with no lens...?

So when they insert the magic artificial lens...all of a sudden I will see again? What if it's wrong? What if someone left it on the dash of their car for a couple of hours, baking in the sun? What if someone's ballpoint pen exploded and a tiny drop of ink splashed onto it? What if something went wrong in the lens-making process and they forgot to include blue (my favorite color)?

How do they know it will fit? Is everyone's eye the same size? What if it's too small, will there be a halo of black all around everything?

I'll give you the play-by-play. What I see (or don't see) during the procedure. Whether it hurts or not. How much of a nuisance the drops are (I think it's every two hours). Trust me, this an adventure of...well, blind faith.

One other thing...they say it only takes 5 minutes. But I've never gone five minutes without blinking. What if I blink?