I'd update my previous post, except that I fell asleep.

The extreme brightness to total darkness; the cartoonish shapes and colors; the barely-heard discussions around me; the vague pressure of the knife cutting into my eye.

I'd meant to have more and better descriptions of all this after my second eye surgery, but I fell asleep.  

That's right: I fell asleep while the doctor cut into my eye, sucked some stuff out, and put new stuff in.  He seemed pretty amused about it once I woke up.

The moral of the story: there was no point in being anxious about it.  Cataract surgery is pretty smooth.