While the Legal View anchor was away on vacation a week ago, she had refractive lense exchange surgery. “It’s a pretty aggressive procedure in which one’s lenses are cut into pieces and arthroscopically ‘vacuumed’ out,” she explained to Mediaite. “Then, brand new refractive lenses are surgically inserted into the eyeball.”

Banfield’s near vision is almost perfect, but it will be a little while longer before her far vision is perfect. She recounted to Mediaite that she didn’t recognize a CNN executive down the hall recently.

“It’s pretty liberating not having to wear glasses for the first time in 20 years!” she said.

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