Contact lens; a small circular plastic disc placed directly on the surface of the eye with the express intention of improving vision. According to cdc.gov, over 45 million Americans wear contact lenses, with two-thirds of the wearers being female. Sounds so simple and yet…this particular wearer struggles daily. Maybe it’s just me.
My eyesight was pretty darn near perfect until I entered my 40’s, better than perfect, actually. I remember feeling rather smug knowing my vision, at least in one eye was 20/15 which is better than the everyday average, 20/20 vision, most folks have. There’s something to be said about humility, if you don’t come by it voluntarily, someday it may be forced upon you.
Despite annual birthday celebrations, a part of me refuses to grow older. In my mind, I’m forever young, too bad my body is not in agreement. At some point, I began noticing issues focusing, almost like my eyes were a camera lens which required adjusting for the clearest picture.
Despite my Peter Pan attitude, I do take care of my health via annual vision check-ups, and this particular year, my ophthalmologist gently reminded me of the threshold crossing birthday I’d celebrated, also known as 40. Bite your tongue, sir! It was official, for my optimal viewing pleasure, glasses had become necessary. Ugh.
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Thanks to a misshapen eyeball, scientifically known as astigmatism, I was not a candidate for contact lenses which means the rest of the world would now know I was not perfect after all. The days being a smug, card-carrying member of the 20/15 vision club came to a screeching halt.
Fortunately for my overinflated pride, I initially only needed to wear glasses when doing computer work. So, I donned my new corrective lenses only when shut away in the privacy of my work cubicle, taking them off whenever I left my desk, even for a quick bathroom break. Although my husband thought me adorable in my frames, I remained mortified by what I viewed as a flaw.
As life often happens, situations may change from bad to worse, such was the case with my eyesight. Within a year or two after the initial eyeglass prescription, my ophthalmologist decided I now needed bifocals. Say what?!!? I don’t think so; those are for grandmas which at the time I was not. Thinking she knew better than the professional she’d paid to examine her eyes, Self-Righteous Becky opted to ignore the bifocal prescription, burying it deep in her purse.
Just FYI, ignoring uncomfortable situations does not cause them to magically disappear. By my next appointment, it was clear that ignoring the suggestion for bifocals was a mistake. By this time I’d realized my struggle with distance vision; I could not see road signs soon enough to safely follow them, I could not clearly see my son playing on the football field and I could not see well at plays or movie theaters. Since all of the aforementioned activities were important to me, I decided to bury my pride and go with bifocals.
There are always lessons to be learned and once again, I learned that not upgrading lenses from the basic insurance allowable was a mistake. I did not upgrade my bifocals and therefore still struggled to see. Insurance only pays for a portion of the lens to have the prescription, which frankly is ridiculous. Because I took the cheap route, I still struggled to see well and ended up wearing the bifocals only for distance viewing.
Not only am I no quitter, but I am also generally willing to try multiple angles in order to achieve the desired results, and glasses were no exception. At my next eye appointment, I asked the doctor to split my prescription; instead of bifocals, I wanted a distance script that I’d use for sunglasses and a reading script for regular glasses. Great idea, right?
Well, as some of you may already know, insurance only covers one pair of glasses. Foiled by my self-righteousness yet again! I opted to get the prescription sunglasses first thinking I’d pay for the regular glasses out of pocket at a later date. Wrong! I never got around to being willing to shell out several hundred dollars for a second pair of glasses.
Now, here’s where the fun REALLY began. Swapping between my prescription sunglasses for driving and watching football games, and my old bifocals for reading was not only exhausting, but my purse chronically complained about having to carry two pairs of glasses! Thank God for improved technology. Ten years after my eyesight began its swift descent, irregularly shaped corneas no longer prevented folks from wearing contacts, yay!
Finally! My eyewear troubles were over. Right? Wrong! My new contacts came with three microscopic lines that must be perfectly aligned upon insertion or they are useless. Since I cannot see the lines with my naked eyes, alignment was virtually impossible. For the first few weeks, I set my alarm clock thirty minutes early just so I’d have sufficient time to put in my contacts.
My ever so thoughtful husband tried to help, but even with his glasses, the microscopic lines were difficult to see. By the end of the second week, I was contact insertion weary. Surely I was not the only person with astigmatism trying to wear contact lenses?? Thank God for the Gospel of Google, through it we learned that the lens will eventually right itself in the eye, even if not inserted at exactly the right angle.
Hooray! My contact troubles were finally behind me. Oh, silly girl. Sure, the contacts will eventually right themselves, but what to do in the interim while you cannot see? Thankfully my drive to work consists of a less than two-mile commute, on virtually empty roads, because some days my contacts do not right themselves until lunchtime. One cannot begin to describe the joys of double or blurred vision when trying to reconcile receivables.
Oh, it gets even better. Despite using daily lubricating eye drops, inserting contacts often makes my eyes feel like someone built sandcastles inside of them. There is also the joy of contacts causing chronic tears, which smear my ever so carefully applied makeup. Let us not forget the days I leave the house sans contacts because I missed that ever so crucial last step before my departure.
There are also times when accidentally rubbing an irritated eye causes a mad hunt for the errant contact that exited my eye without permission. Or there are the times the contacts refuse to adhere to my eyeball and instead hide on the floor or counter. Even better, sometimes, the contacts fool me into believing they have adhered to my eye only to find out later I’ve been duped into leaving the house like a one-eyed sailor with one contact in and one missing.
My annual eye appointment is scheduled to occur within the next few weeks and I’m seriously contemplating Lasik surgery but am unsure because needles and eyes really ought never to meet. Until then, I’ll keep plugging away with my daily contact conundrums because after all, I’ll taking seeing over not any day of the week!
Until Next Time.
Becky J Miller
Warrior Princess