Me and my first pair of glasses
When I was about 12 years old I asked Dr. Van Patten how bad my eyes were and he said that I had the vision of someone in their late 60's. I have always been terribly far sighted, I have an eye that turns in and a severe astigmatism. Doc gave me exercises to do to strengthen my eyes and every night I'd sit on the edge of my bed and do my eye stretches before I went to bed. I still do them today, they feel good. The day I came home with my first pair of glasses my older sister called me four-eyes and was promptly sent to her room. School was a lot like that first night. My glasses magnify my eyes so they appear quite large. "My what big eyes you have" was a constant taunt.
When I was 6 years old my mother asked about this new thing she saw on TV, soft contact lenses. The doctor told her it was out of the question, I was too young. The youngest they had tried was 13 and he put them on his dog! It was too much responsibility for a child. Mom stood her ground and assured him that I wasn't like other kids. She really went to bat for me and her persistence paid off. He agreed to try.
I remember that it took weeks and weeks to get the contacts in. They had to make special ones for me. One of the nurses taught me how to wash my hands and get all the oils off my fingers, to be gentle cleaning the lenses and then we practiced putting them in. My mom bought me a special magnified mirror with a gold frame to put on my little tea party table so I could see to put on my contacts. I was too small to reach the bathroom mirror to do it there.
At one point they had me teach adults how to care for their contact lenses because they had trouble getting through to them. One lady used to put vaseline on her hands and then put in her lenses. I showed her how I washed my hands and we sat across from each other while I demonstrated pulling down my eye lid to make room for the lenses. She was very irresponsible. I was not irresponsible, in 30 years I have never torn or lost a contact lens.
Each year I would get my eyes checked and mom and I would fight over which glasses I would get. If I wanted bright green plastic frames mom would argued, "what will happen when you want to wear a pink sweater?" She always won.
So many people wear glasses that it's pretty common and you understand what it means to pick out glasses. You want the right shape for your face, the right size and colour. They should be fashionable and comfortable. You may try on 50 pairs before you find the right ones. Imagine that you stare at the big display of glasses and they tell you that of the 100 or so on display "these four will fit your prescription". Four. You get to choose from four. When coloured contact lenses came out I was so excited, I'd be so fancy! When I asked about them the nurse snorted, "not in your prescription." When they came out with bendable frames, or frameless glasses same thing, not in my prescription. I was lucky to have glasses why did I need to get picky?
When I was in high school in the 90's my parent's friends started having radial keratotomy eye surgery. My boyfriends mom had it and we got to watch it on video! I was amazed, they took a tiny little circular blade and made a few incisions on her eye. It took 5 minutes and the next day she could see without glasses. I was sold, I wanted eye surgery. I went to see the new, younger and female Dr. Van Patten and she laughed at me. "They don't do surgery for your eyes." Then she informed me that it would be years before technology caught up with my eyes. She was right. It was 19 years to be exact. 38 pairs of glasses, 200 pairs of contact lenses, 4 doctors and 19 years later I am getting my eye surgery.
I was so used to hearing no. No, you can't have coloured lenses, no you can't have fun frames, no, no, no. When the surgeon said yes I cried. Actually she just started talking about how she was going to make this surgery work for my eyes and I just stopped her, "Wait, you're saying yes? Yes, you can do it?" she smiled, "Absolutely. Yes." I felt a tear slide down my cheek. Yes. She said yes. Just like that, yes. Yes, I can give you eye sight. Like she was offering to knit me a scarf or wash my car. Sure honey, you want fries with that vision?
They scheduled me and I got the pre-surgery talk. Will and I walked out to the parking lot to go home. He just kept saying "How about that?" I was still shocked. I choked, "I can't believe she said yes" and then burst into tears. I'm crying now as I type it. She said yes.
As we rode home I remembered all those stories about being a kid in glasses but then I thought about what was coming. What will it be like to not be afraid to walk down stairs? I have really poor depth perception so I can't tell how far away things are. Steps might look like a flat surface to me or smaller than they really are. What if I could catch a ball? My whole life I've been hit in the face with baseballs, softballs, tennis balls, soccer balls. I can't see them coming. What if I could walk down the street and not be afraid because I can't tell the difference between sticks and snakes? And what about those silly posters and books that were so popular a few years ago? The ones with the 3D picture that "popped" out of another picture. You stare and it and the hidden picture sort of appears. I have never been able to see one of those, what if I could see the hidden picture?
I'm having surgery in 4 days. They told me to be sure to bring my old glasses to donate. Someone else will get to use my glasses because I will be able to see without them. I'm going to buy a new pair of sun glasses that don't have to be altered before I can wear them. I'm going to be able to see my teammates when I skate and I'm going to be able to ride my motorcycle fast. I will be able to wear eye liner on my lower lid and won't have to minimize my makeup because my glasses magnify everything. I will be able to see the clock when I wake up in the middle of the night. I hear that after surgery you can see the individual leaves on a tree. Each leaf! How good would that be?
I'm gonna see leaves.
