A Long Week For Me...

The first time Kenny and I saw this advert, we both sat there, quite bemusedly, trying to figure out what exactly was being advertised: an electric or gas provider? an environmentalist group? sellers of electrical gadgets? And then... oh how we guffawed. Classic. Did you 'see' it coming? Get it? SEE it? Ha ha. I kill me. ;)

Anyway, my eyesight IS that bad, so I didn't make any mistake: I made an appointment at SpecSavers. A week ago, I went in for my check-up. It was fine-- but they had failed to inform me that you have to make a separate appointment for contact fitting (even though when I had originally made the appointment I specifically said it was for new contacts). So I had to make another appointment, for as soon as possible. The lady said there was one open the next day, so I said 'Yes, please!' She wrote me out an appointment card, which I tucked into my folded-up copy of my glasses prescription, and I toodled on home. The next day, I showed up for my appointment... for the receptionist to tell me I wasn't in the books. Impossible, I thought. 'But I have the card!', I said. And pulled it out, to look at it for the first time. And, of course, noticed then that the date written on it was for Wednesday... and this was Tuesday. Oh, I was so embarrassed, and annoyed! I had just remembered what the lady had told me and never thought to actually look at the card. Sheesh. Lucky for me, the same doctor I had seen the day before (a young, cute one, as luck would have it) was standing in the doorway, chuckling at the whole situation. He very kindly offered to see me then, as he was free, unless I just wanted to come back tomorrow. I graciously accepted.

This doctor was really nice. He seems really young to me, which makes me think I must be getting old, ha. I am used to being treated here like I am wasting the doctors' time, that I am a burden and a bore. This guy, he started out kind of distant and disgruntled, but y'all know me. I can't help myself. So by the time I left, we were on pretty chatty terms, cracking jokes and all. It was nice. Which may be why he worked me in on Tuesday... a little friendliness goes a long way, that's all I have to say. And a good rapport with your doctor always makes it easier to both take the 'bad news' and follow his (or her) instructions. Even if I wasn't very happy about it.

So the fitting appointment is only supposed to take ten to fifteen minutes, but the doctor wanted to re-check a few things. He took the measurements, and all that stuff. But then, again, we did the stain test (which tickles me, when everything goes all yellow for a bit)... and that's where things got a little hinky. Apparently, my doctor informed me, my eyes are really dry. They don't seem really dry to me, except in the mornings when they are really goopy and sticky, and sometimes at night after a long day. But if he says so, it must be. And he tells me that because of this dryness (which is probably due to long days, every days in my contacts, as well as wearing them when reading and writing-- because you blink less when you are focusing on something. Who knew?!) I have loads of little, bitty scratches all over my eyes. It's the kind of thing that isn't bad now, but can't be let to go on... it could cause big problems if left unchecked. Sheesh! And I had no idea.

What, you may ask, is to be done? Well, this is where things got bad for me. Not so bad at first... he gave me some fancy-schmancy contacts that don't dry your eyes out like others (and, of course, are more expensive) to try on. They felt great, and wearing them allowed the doctor to tweak my prescription to perfection. And then I had to take them out, and throw 'em away. Boo-hoo! What a waste. That's when I got the bad news... but thankfully, because I am on friendly terms with this doctor, we got to negotiate a little. He told me he didn't want me to wear my contacts for a while. A while?! What do you mean, a while?! I wear them all the time. I don't go out without them. I hate wearing my glasses-- it is in part thanks to my poor scarred psyche from being the only kid with glasses in elementary school, and having, as many of us did, really bad frames, and in part it's the annoyance of how they fog up, or slip down... not to mention having to squint in the sunshine. So the good doctor and I came to an agreement-- I would not wear my contacts for one whole week. And I would get this stuff from the chemist to put in them every night before I went to bed-- thick, vaseline-like stuff to lubricate them. And then I would come back in a week. IF my eyes were better, if the lube and the rest had worked at all, then I would get my one-month trial pair of contacts. Still, there will be more to negotiate: how many days I'm allowed to wear them, how many hours each day, stuff like that. And then, hopefully, I'll go back once more before I come home, for one more check of the contacts, and to see if my eyes are holding up and-- even better-- healing up.

If I have to give up wearing contacts, I swear... I'll be going into debt to get laser correction surgery. I can't go back to wearing just glasses. I just can't! And I won't. No sirree. Not even if they are this kind, which would solve at least one of the issues I have with wearing them: