Both Eyes Blind (Part I)

This is what I get for waiting eight years between eye exams. I didn’t mean to let so much time pass, but who does? Life has a way of happening when you have other plans. In the grand scheme, I reckoned my vision would tell me when it was time for a check up, and that time came last week.

Since my last visit, my optometrist got married and had two children. She’s a lovely young woman, very gentle and soft-spoken, and she knows my history so well that, though I had entertained the notion of starting over with someone new, it made sense to remain with her and take my lumps for being remiss in making regular appointments.

“Welcome back, Ruth,” she said, opening with a smile and lump number one. “How have you been?”

I was pleased to report that I’ve actually been pretty well. No health disasters, no prescription drugs, and no family doctor required in the past near-decade. But my glasses need updating, and have done for almost a year. My Transition lenses don’t transition that well anymore.

“You’ll be amazed at the advances in their technology,” she said, lobbing lump number two as if it was a softball. “They change really fast nowadays.”

We did the field and focus tests. She’s already aware of my misaligned eyeballs and how my brain has given up trying to interpret letters on a screen when my left eye is called upon to transmit the image, but gods bless her, she tried to encourage me. I guessed wildly at the top line and nailed it (from memory, but she didn’t have to know that). “How about the next line?” she asked.

I sighed. “I know they’re letters, but I can’t tell you what they are.”

“Can you tell how many there are?”

“No. I just know they’re there.”

“Try the first one.”

“Ummmm … ‘K’—I think.”

“Good! What’s next?”

I hemmed and hawed, stalling for time until the magic happened. Suddenly, my brain switched sides and the string emerged in a triumphant rush. “ ‘K’, ‘O’, ‘V’ ‘H’!”

“What’s the one between ‘K’ and ‘O’?”

“There’s one between ‘K’ and ‘O’?”

My doctors all think I’m a riot.

She played with lens options and finally settled on a prescription that turns out to be a little better for distance and should clarify the written word at closer-than-arm’s-length. So far, so good.

Then came the drops to dilate my pupils. I was warned when I made the appointment, but I thought the statement to bring my sunglasses applied to prescription shades, which I don’t have on account of the aforementioned Transition lenses. Besides, my office is only two blocks over from the eye doctor’s; how bad could it be?

Fifteen minutes later, I was back in the chair with the lights dimmed while she aimed a thousand watt penlight directly into my brain and I tried not to scream.

Forget love. Light hurts!

But she got the reading she was after—no sign of diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol or glaucoma, and my corneas are thickening in accordance with my age, yippee aye ay. In short, nothing out of the ordinary. She gave me some drops and sent me on my way with my new prescription and a more forceful lump number three: “See you next year.”

to be continued …