Luckily it was only a single retina that was damaged, and it was due to a parasite when I was under a year old, so I've never actually known what it was like to have two good eyes.
You can get by with only one eye, but you don't have any real depth perception and you don't get any benefits from 3D movies (although you still get all the downsides). Plus, although I would love to try laser surgery to improve my vision in my remaining "good" eye (if you can call needing -9.5 power lenses good), the risks are still too high given the consequences if something went wrong.
I'm in the same boat; different circumstances but I've only got one functioning eye and the other one isn't fantastic. (-14 contact lens.)
I often wonder if there isn't more I could be doing -- hanging out near research hospitals that have good retina teams, following research, anything -- to keep abreast of new developments or maybe even get in on some trials for new procedures.
It's actually sort of interesting how much the field of eye care has improved in my lifetime:
I was a year and half when I had surgery to shorten one of the muscles for my bad eye - they thought it was just a lazy eye.
When I was 5 I used to have to wear a patch over my good eye for an hour a day because the doctors still thought my other eye was just lazy and that I could be "trained" to use it properly.
At 6 we traveled 4 hours to Seattle to see an eye specialist at a hospital. It was a full day affair and I had to spend most of the day in a dimly lit playroom because my eyes were kept dilated so they could take multiple pictures. This is when they actually figured out that there was more going on, and decided what parasite actually caused the damage (I still can't remember the name of it).
15 years ago I went to an eye doctor who took another picture of my eye. He wanted to show the image to others because he had never seen anything like it.
Even 5 years ago pictures of the eye usually meant dilating it and putting in a dye so they could get a clear image.
Today I can go get an eye exam and they don't even need to put dye in my eye to take a picture. --Other tests still need the dye, but at least I haven't had to have my eyes dilated for around 3 years. And, of course, the images are stored online so they can quickly load them up and compare them to make sure nothing has changed.
If this sort of progress continues, I figure there's a chance that they'll come up with something that can give me vision in both eyes before I'm too old for it to matter. :)
Do doctors think you're brain did enough development when you were an infant that it would handle visual info coming from your bad eye if your retina were replaced? I was under the impression that someone like you (who grew up without using the eye) might not be able to usefully interpret the signals from the eye if it were repaired.
There are limits to its adaptability, especially for processing-heavy tasks like vision for which the brain has specialized hardware. There is a world of difference between interpreting 144 electrodes to pick out just a couple of bits of information, and seeing.
In particular, if the brain were infinitely plastic then you could just wire the output from a HD video camera to some random spot on the brain and wait for the brain to figure it out.
I suffered from strabismus while an infant and got surgery at 5. For some unfortunate reasons, I did not get sufficient vision therapy and this turned into amblyopia (lazy eye).
20 years later, as an adult, I had weekly vision therapy for close to 1 year (once a week). All the other patients where kids less than 10 y/o. Although it is considered very hard (or impossible) to correct amblyopia in adults (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblyopia#Treatments), my doctor was very open minded and we tried a lot of different exercises with more or less success.
I made some progress so the brain can learn some tricks. For example, I learned to switch my point of view from one eye to the other. I can also force my brain to see from both eyes at the same time though I then see double and the images are not aligned and the lazy eye's image is darker.
At the end, I stopped active therapy for two reasons. First, because I was scared that I would end up in a state where I would see double all the time and not be able to control it anymore. I know it is not very pragmatic but as talanvor said, I will not risk loosing my one good eye. Second, because it was becoming very expensive and the insurance was not ready to cover this kind of treatment for adults.
For me, it is the latest snake powder intended to boost sells in movie and high-end electronic devices industry. I tried just once but, as far as I can tell, it has no benefit, except being able to say I have seen a part of a 3D movie.
I hear someone saying "improved immersion".
Well, immersion is not a function of some "more realistic" rendering. I never played Minecraft but apparently many people get deeply immersed in this low-fi world. I personally get easily immersed in any B&W Hitchcock movie. Our ancestors got so immersed at theater that the actor playing the bad guy had to be protected after the play. In Chinese opera, the full "ride a horse" movement is a very slight move of the right leg, and if done well all the spectators will stand up and shout 好！好！
So no, immersion is not improved with 3D, it is improved with good actors and story.
Ok, I'm making some assumptions about 3D movies, admittedly. --I just figured that the only reason anyone liked Avatar was because the 3D effects made up for the horrible plot. At least, that's the only reason I can think of for why anyone would like it.
One of my eyes is a good bit stronger than the other and I've never been able to see those 3D holograms and don't have true depth perception.
Interestingly enough, Avatar did work in 3D for me (though the effect did seem to depend on how close I was to the screen - closer worked better). Its the only 3D movie that has worked, but admittedly I have not went to many since I figured its a waste of time if I can't see the effects anyway. I tried a 3D TV last year and it didn't work for me at all. Avatar did though and while I don't know if the effects made the movie more immersive or anything, they were certainly interesting. It was really the simplest effects that had the most impact: sparks, rain drops, clouds - stuff like that.
Making 2D movies into 3D seems completely pointless to me.
You can get by with only one eye, but you don't have any real depth perception and you don't get any benefits from 3D movies (although you still get all the downsides). Plus, although I would love to try laser surgery to improve my vision in my remaining "good" eye (if you can call needing -9.5 power lenses good), the risks are still too high given the consequences if something went wrong.