I have always had real good eyes. Over the years while both my parents needed glasses and my brother and my wife – and now even my daughter, I had been spared. Until recently. The troubles began over the past few years. The normal stuff of growing older where I was needing to hold things further and further away to see them. Then reading started to get frustrating. I could hold whatever I was reading far enough away to see it, but not always clearly – and the words were getting smaller and were sometimes jittery. It started to feel like I had cobwebs in my left eye and I began feeling nauseous after time spent with the iPad and laptop. It was time to get my eyes checked.
I hadn’t been to the eye doctor in a long time. Maybe 15-20 years. Too long, I know, but I did go to my family doctor yearly for an exam and he always checked the eyes while there. So I went. A whirlwind of look in here, try to read that line, what color is this, try to keep you eyes open while I scan that. I decided to get my eyes dilated rather than get a photo taken in order to save $50, but then had to get a photo anyway because the doctor saw something he wanted to archive in my records. I have a freckle behind my right eyeball and since I haven’t been getting exams for all these years, the doctor has no baseline as to how much the freckle has changed over the years. So I got dilated and still had to pay the $50. Awesome. The final outcome was glasses, of course. They wanted me to go full in, with progressives containing three different prescriptions. Reading, computer, and distance. I wasn’t ready for that, so I went with just the two, reading and computer. $513 after my insurance discount. Picking out the frames was difficult, of course. Too many choices. I could sit in there for hours trying to decide. I couldn’t, of course, because there were other patients and the pressure was on to wrap it up. My eyes were still dilated and I was trying to come to grips with needed glasses and looking at all these different frames. So much fun…
Well, the ones I picked out were ready today. It was a week earlier than promised which I was actually expecting, because that is what happened with my wife and daughter’s glasses. I’ve been trying them since lunch and my experience has been mixed so far. I can definitely see better up close, but everything seems off and wonky. My iPad and phone have a trapezoid shape when I look at them. I’m told that will go away as I get use to them. With the computer I need to be looking right at the sweet spot to see better. If I move my eyes around to scan the screen, then the focus is off. I need to move my head and find the sweet spot again. I am so used to scanning quickly over and between spreadsheets that wearing these glasses is going to take me a lot longer to get my work done. Plus, while I can see things a little clearer on the screen, all the reflections on the lenses and the constant refocusing is quite distracting. I think they are going to be great for reading and just web searching on the laptop. For work I may just have to do without. I’ll give them a chance, though, and see what happens.
The really weird thing is the realization that you need something artificial added to your body to make you whole again – or somewhat whole. I know. Boo hoo – poor me. Most everybody has to wear glasses and then there are hearing aids and pacemakers and prosthetic limbs. I get it. It’s just weird getting older and needing things that you never needed before. Especially when it was something that I tied to my identity my whole life. Perfect eyes.
