Tuesday, February 01, 2011

The Eyes Have It

Once upon a time, I had perfect eyes. I could see in the dark, near, far and everything in between. Everytime I stepped outside, I wore sunglasses whether sunny or cloudy. I took good care of them.

That may be why I got an extra five years out of my 20/20 vision before they started going downhill. Everyone in my family had great vision until about 40 - mine lasted to 45. Then I couldn't read stuff up close... which progressed to not seeing anything clearly until it was about two inches past the end of my arm.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes, my doctor sent me to have my eyes examined - a first for me. I'd never been to an eye doctor before. It was, as they say, an eye-opening experience. What was happening to my eyes was normal aging - myopia. He was quite jealous though, that my distance vision was still perfect.

I've noticed an unsettling acceleration of the degeneration of my sight though. Just last week, I went to the Men's Breakfast at church. Plunked my purse down at the table I intended to sit at and went to grab a plate before approaching the buffet they'd set up. And discovered that buffet distance was a thing of the past. So I had a scoop of yellow. A scoop of white. A beige piece of round and two strips of brown. There was also a mystery yellow/white/brown pan that could have been hashbrowns or apple crisp. When I got back to the table, I fished my glasses out to see what I was having for breakfast. Scrambled eggs, grits, biscuit, bacon and hashbrowns. I heaved an internal sigh. Life is changing again.

I have my yearly appointment with the eye doctor on the ninth. I'm hoping he'll keep telling me to increase the strength on my readers and avoid the prescription glasses for a while yet, but I guess I won't know that until the ninth.

5 comments:

Sandy said...

Embrace the prescription. I fought it for so long and it is SO easy to just put the glasses on and go about my life. Just make sure the pup doesn't eat them!

Karmyn R said...

My eyes went bad in college - but last year I had lasik - and absolutely LOVE it....but, I know that lasik does nothing for the aging eye. I figure I've got 10 years before I have to deal with that again. (well, I'm hoping its 10 years)

Faye said...

Eye glasses are all about fashion to me. Must have them as am extremely near sighted so they have to look good. Recently I got some new ones--very retro like Annette Benning's in "The Kids are Alright."

I'd say go for as many bells and whistles as you can afford--no-line, varalux. Get frames that you won't mind wearing all the time and get good at eyeliner!

gayle said...

I use to love the fact that I could read without glasses......well not anymore!

Anonymous said...

I wish I could have read this post... alas, I can't find my glasses. Has anyone seen them? They are sort of grey-metalic colored and really fuzzy...

John