Wednesday, November 10, 2021

To See, Or Not To See


My eyeballs are starting to get obstreperous, and it's really no wonder. The mystery is why it's taken so long, because I have treated them like crap since forever.
 
We all start out with little baby eyeballs made of rubber and goo and they increase in size dramatically after we're born. For most people, they top out in size in the teenage years. Mine peaked at age seven, leaving me with Bedroom Closet eyes. Age seven was also when my eyeballs realized I was never going to be tall and they started to squash down flat to fit in the available space, which really did a number on my ability to see anything more than a foot away.
 
So I got combat lenses when I was fourteen. Contact, I mean. That was about eighty years after the first contact lens was invented and no doubt an improvement on the original, which was made of glass and covered the entire eye. I'm not sure who volunteered for that or if they included any lubricating solution, but opium was widely available. Modern contacts are made of fun and frog hair and you wear them once and fling them into the air like Mary Tyler Moore's hat. My first pair were hubcaps and you inserted them with a drop of Tabasco. In a pinch you could pop them out and open a bottle cap with them, but in ordinary use they served to collect grains of sand to rake over your corneas. If I am not mistaken, they came with a little Dremel tool set to grind down your eyeball abrasions for a perfect fit. Even so, if you blinked too hard they'd travel sideways and embed themselves into the eyeball area Formerly Known As White, sometimes with enough suction that they needed to be pried out with a fingernail, leaving perfect bloodshot circle tattoos behind.

But I must report I could see really well with contacts unless there was dust in the air, when I would be paralyzed with my eyes shut waiting for a friend to come along and tow me away by the elbow.

One time, because for some reason I had not yet gone blind, I used my roommate's wetting solution, just to try it--the way you try other people's shampoo--even though she'd bought it in Mexico and the bottle was labeled in Spanish, and even though (as it turned out) it was not wetting solution at all, but cleaning solution, and boy howdy it got loud in that bathroom that morning.

Throughout all of this I became so comfortable with touching my own eyeballs that I did it routinely, licking a finger to scoop out eyebrow hairs and eyelashes. Thank goodness those have all fallen out by now.

Anyway. It's no wonder my sad little soldiers of sight are starting to squawk. After twenty years of success with trifocals, effortlessly navigating the three zones of correction, now none of the zones work all that well, and even new prescriptions are more of a compromise than a solution. And of course there is the matter of the piano glasses specifically prescribed for reading sheet music, which are not quite up to the task. I have discovered that if I pull my glasses out about a centimeter from my face, everything looks pretty good, although bringing the music that much closer does nothing at all. I do not understand this. 

But I can achieve just the right distance by wedging a tampon at the bridge of my nose. It's fine. It's not like I'm at the concert hall all dolled up in a long black gown. 
 
The string is a little distracting.

37 comments:

  1. I didn't get my contacts (soft ones) until I was 24. I was amazed at how I could see individual leaves on trees in the distance. How I now had peripheral vision without having to turn my head. The only downside at that time was that all contact solutions had trimerasol (mercury) as a preservative, and it irritated my eyes, so I had to make my own saline solution each day and use a heating machine every night to disinfect them. They were pretty high-maintenance back then. Fortunately now, instead of wearing the same lenses all year, I now have even thinner ones that I wear for a month. And they are multifocal. Solutions stopped using mercury.

    However, then came the eye changes that come with age. Still near-sighted, but now a bit far-sighted as well. So even with contacts, I must wear readers to read anything. Also, with near-sighted people especially, the eyeball shrinks from the retina. For a few hours, you see flashes of light, and you call your eye doctor in the early morning hours in a panic. She checks you out, pronounces your retina okay, and it only leaves you with more floaters than you originally had. THEN, several months later, you go through the exact same thing with the OTHER eyeball. The floaters are more of a nuisance than anything. If i tilt my head a certain way, they go off to the side. I'm just glad that I can see, and well enough to drive and read.

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    1. Nothing barks "old lady" like peering over your own glasses to read something. All I need now is the little bejeweled spectacles leash.

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  2. Omg your description of your first contacts is the reason I never tried them. I’ve stumbled along with glasses, I can never get clean, for more years than I care to admit. As far as I can tell all cataract surgery did was cause me to lose the ability to read without my glasses.
    Next week I get to see a retina specialist because the wrinkle on my retina has changed, sigh… The first specialist I saw, years ago, told me he could take care of it but that I wouldn’t like the results😟
    I hate my eyes but I sure don’t want them to get any worse!
    Right now it feels like I’ve got a log in my right eye, not sure what that is all about.

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    1. Oh! Maybe you have a Pinguecula. Yes, that's it, a pinguecula.

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  3. When I first saw your photo (before reading this), I thought "Could that be...?" Yep! That string was a dead giveaway, I am sitting here shaking my head! Well, I've worn glasses since I was 11 years old so I can relate to all of this, including bi & trifocals and I have some mornings (not all, some) where I wouldn't be reading or typing this at 8am because I simply couldn't see what I'm doing. Today I can, I don't get it but I'm grateful for what I've still got. I am now off to google 'bedroom closet eyes"!

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    1. Yeah, that's new too, the not being able to see in the morning thing. Huh. Bedroom closet eyes are very small eyes.

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    2. You know, a lot of times if you Google some of my phrases, you just get me.

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    3. Paul has trouble reading stuff in the morning, too. I didn't realize that it was a thing. Am much relieved. His eyes can't be dilated during exams because, as our eye doctor told us, he has narrow angle something-something.

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  4. Hum, me too. Haven't used a Tampax in years so I may have to experiment with sizes. A little glitter might help. Did check the Internet though and if by moving our glasses away from our face improves our vision it means we have too strong a prescription. Let's see tampon with string hanging or an eye doc? Need to think about that:)

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    1. Foster Grant makes multifocalreaders that you can buy in the drugstore. I bought several pairs for various rooms and my purse. They made SUCH a difference as opposed to the single strength readers. The lower area is designed for reading, the middle point for the computer monitor, and the top part for talking to someone at more of a distance. No more taking them off and on for different things or situating them WAY down on my nose.

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    2. I'd have to put readers over my glasses. I think your vision isn't as bad as mine.

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    3. Paul wears blue-blockers over his glasses at night (contacts during the day. Yes, we are poodles.) I tell him that he needs to add some other pair of glasses over THIS assortment, because then I can call him 8 eyes instead 6 eyes. He'd be legally declared a spider, and I so LOVE spiders! (Even though they bite me frequently. They are just so cool.)

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  5. OMG this is what has been happening to me. I cannot read the sheet music and have been adjusting the seat height. I read a kindle now because I can't get the damn book pages right and my trifocals can't ever seem to be adjust right. What a fabulous explanation. Thanks... onto organ practice!

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    1. I'm reading this with my morning coffee and can barely make out the print. It will be better later on in the day, but shouldn't it be tip top, first thing?

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  6. Sigh. I need my glasses (laughing called reading glasses) for everything.

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    1. These days it might be better not to see everything.

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  7. ...but if I sweat while at the gym, won't the tampon absorb the sweat and expand a bit and throw off my focus? Or should I just stick to worrying about what the guys will say when they see "Tampon Ed" approach the squat rack??

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    1. Now I'm going to be thinking "Tampon Ed approaches the squat rack!" all day.

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    2. OMG, Ed, I can’t unread “ Tampon Ed approach the squat rack.”
      Beth in OC

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  8. I tried contact lenses as a much younger man, but my desire to work with wood often filled my eyes with sawdust which would have to be flushed out. Not so good when wearing contacts so I switched back to glasses.

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    1. That's the worst thing about contacts. Any little thing that ends up in you eye ( an eyelash, a strand of hair, dust) feels like OMG! KILL ME NOW!! Paul and I went on a day trip to Manayunk and a storm kicked up. Lots of wind, and some dust blew into my eyes. Fortunately I was not driving, because I could not see and it was painful! If you know The Blue Route at all, you know that it took a LONG while for us to get back to Delaware. Since then, I keep a small bottle of saline with me, as well as a lens case and some old glasses.

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    2. Had a tiny cactus spine inside my eyelid that drove me nuts for about 6 hours until I got to a hospital with an eye doc. The relief was instantaneous.

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    3. They're amazing. I went to the ER one time with my eye completely swollen shut and the doctor had a teeny little plunger exactly like a toilet plunger for a shrew. He pushed my eyelids apart for just long enough to POINK! my contact out. I do not miss contact lenses at all.

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  9. Cut the string.
    I can see fine if I hold my glasses about four inches from my face, but only through one lens at a time since both are different, then through the left lens I see the writing sloping upwards from bottom left, through the right lens I see it sloping downwards from top left. Damn crossed vision!

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  10. Jeepers, you left out cataract surgeries. Clouded up teeny tiny lenses aren't on your problem list? My first thought, was: aren't you surely just old enough to not have tampons left in the back of the bathroom cabinet? But, with the suggested artistic enhancements of the string, the tiny tampon seems to be the correct size for your tiny eyes. Interesting physical problem. Think I'll keep my "smaller than normal" bladder vs the tiny eyes.
    Yep, I had contacts back when I needed to be cute. No need now, I just need to see. Maybe you just need nose pieces that are thicker? Good luck, cuz tampons cost a lot more than in the past. Linda in Kansas

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    1. I have tampons in the guest bathroom because I am just that hospitable. Interestingly, the first one I pulled out was a super, and it didn't want to stay on my nose, so I gave up. But when I went back to get another one for this photo, I found a Junior, and it worked so well I left it on for an entire hour of practice! Important to get the right size, ladies.

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  11. SO true! Glasses -> hard Contact s-> PRK surgery -> readers was my route but I'm not complaining because at least I can see.

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  12. I'm reading this with one eye since I am recovering from a macular hole repair surgery. I am past the stage of having to have my face down all of the time except for sleeping on my side, but I still have a gas bubble in my eye. My vision in that eye is so, so distorted due to the bubble, that I am feeling very off kilter and kind of dizzy. I am just starting to be able to pour things without missing the container that I am pouring into. I have run into the bathroom door with my toe and the doorknob with my arm and am really bruised. Hopefully only 6 more weeks until the gas bubble goes away and my vision in that eye will hopefully have usable vision. I walk around the house like Mr Magoo and that is just with one eye having problems. I have a suggestion for people who wear glasses to see distance, keep a piece of graph paper in a place will you can see it on a regular basis, so you can check yourself for macular problems. If the lines look crooked or are distorted you may be having a problem with macular degeneration or a macular hole or other problem. It is better to know earlier that late.

    Right now the idea of putting a contact lens into my poor sore eye gives me the shivers, but I used to try and wear soft contact lenses when I was going out somewhere where I didn't want glasses on my face. They were so uncomfortable. I had dry eyes even as a teenager. My son wore soft contacts when he was a teenager. He has been out of the house and in the Air Force for 17 years now. One day recently I saw something sparkling on the back of the door in what used to be his bedroom. I looked at it closer and removed it from the door where it was stuck and it was a dried up soft contact lens that had belonged to my son I assume. I may need to dust the backs of the doors in our house a bit more often.

    When I was a teenager my best friend who wore hard contacts had been in an argument with her boyfriend and was crying. The argument ended and she needed to take her lens out and clean it, she didn't have lens cleaner with her, so being a teenager, she popped the lens into her mouth to clean and moisten it. She hadn't completely quit crying yet and did one of those little snuffing sounds that happen after crying and she accidentally swallowed her contact. Well, she lost that contact, and we assume that everything came out alright in the end.

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    1. Lordy! And when you had those hard contacts, they were expensive. Remember seeing entire basketball teams on their hands and knees looking for a lens for a teammate? Once I lost one in the bathroom and I'd heard it plink off the sink and KNEW it had to be nearby, but I searched for an hour and gave up. Then Dave took over and found it stuck to the wall, about four feet up. I would never have looked there.

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  13. So you only use the tampon periodically?

    As a life-long four-eyes, I can relate. After Coke-bottle-bottom lenses most of my life, getting contacts seemed like a dream come true- but the maintenance part wasn't in the dream. On the bright side, I was working at Subway Sandwiches in Beaverton, and I was the only one in the place not crying when slicing onions.

    Then the first lasic surgery. For over a decade, my eyes didn't need to accessorize. THEN came the cataracts! So I had them lased again. In a reversal to my natural myopia, now I need reading glasses.

    Of course, I have friends with more severe visual impairment who may justifiably say, "Well, go cry me a river!" So I need to be grateful for what I've got.

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    1. Oh, yes! That is one of the great things about contacts. I NEVER cry when slicing onions. And I slice a LOT of them, as I am a scratch cook and Paul LOVES onions. If I take them out and have to cook something, crying ensues.

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    2. I do not remember not crying while slicing onions, but then on the other hand I never cooked for the entire thirty years I wore them.

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  14. Tampon sales just went up 200%. 😁

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    1. Murr, I know that it was just wordplay, but now I can't unsee that...

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