Monday, March 8, 2010

Blurry to clear to blurry

So, all my life I have had some sort of eye problems, as a child my vision was extremely myopic, meaning I could barely see past my nose. Thank goodness for glasses but I hated them from the first day I wore them. Oh ya, I could finally see the the writing on the black board in school, and I no longer had to figure out who was walking toward me by the way they walked, I could actually see the person and distinguish who it was by their face.. Amazing things glasses are but mine were coke bottle thick and made me look like a dork.

I was never so happy when contact lenses came out, I literally ran to my eye Doctors to see if I could get contacts. The first ones were the old hard lenses, remember those?? you needed to slowly get used to wearing by gradually increasing your wearing time each day. My first try was very painful and I gave up for about a year and went back to the old thick glasses, but I was determined that one day I would have contacts so I tried again, that time being sucessful. Only once I remember falling asleep with them in my eyes and that was one painful thing I never did again. I had scratched the cornea and needed special drops for about a week, I didn't even want to think about putting something into my eye until the dreadful burning pain subsided.



Then out came the soft contacts and they were heaven to wear, no more popping out at the blink of an eye, no more limited wearing time and the vision was even better than ever. Shortly after that and even better invention to the soft lenses were the ones you could wear continuously for a week at a time, even sleep in them. Wow, to be able to see the clock in the middle of the night or get up to the bathroom without crashing into the door or tripping over something that you couldn't see on the floor, not to mention the ritual that you had to go through each morning to put the lenses in which was no easy feat being I could barely see what I was doing until I at least got one of them in. I did that mainly by feel rather than actually seeing what I was doing.

Then the wondrous miracle of lasik surgery.. I jumped on that as soon as I felt the procedure had been perfected and it was a huge success for me!!! I had 20/20 vision without the aid of any kind of contacts or glasses for the first time in my life and I remember thinking any day my eye sight would suddenly morf back to the myopic state I had all my life, but it didn't and even the astigmatism I dealt with was corrected so that night vision was almost perfect. I was for the first time in my life liberated from glasses!!!!! Then~~~~

I developed cataracts, I must have some how aged along the way, at least my eyes did. So I waited about a year and each eye exam they said "you need to take care of those cataracts" until finally I said "ok lets do it". That being said I agreed, to try mono vision with one eye being fitted with a lens for near vision and the other for far vision. The only problem was because I had had lasik years earlier it made it harder for the Doctors to determine just what my correction would be. So now after having one cataract removed I'm back to poor vision in one eye with astigmatism that makes everything blurry. They tell me I have to wait 4-6 weeks and it can be tweaked so in the mean time I'm back to wearing glasses. I don't intend to have the other cataract done until I find out how this one is going to finally come out. I think perhaps I've come full circle. Funny how life sends us on so many different walks and how on any walk we find ourselves our Heavenly Father is always there with us.

I'm not telling you this to get sympathy or to scare anyone out of having cataracts taken care of many people everyday have very successful results and this story isn't over yet. I have full confidence in the end my vision will finally improve but it has been a humbling series of events indeed.

6 comments:

Mari said...

I've followed the same trail as you - thick glasses at a young age, then hard contacts, then soft contacts. I would love to have the lasik, but not the cataracts!
I know your eyes will straighten out soon!

Fitter After 50 said...

You didn't scare me but I must say I really enjoyed the way your wrote about your experience. I'm sorry you're having trouble with your vision though.

Glenda said...

Hope your vision clears completely really soon! It's one of those things we take for granted sometimes - until we have problems.

Connie said...

I wore hard contacts for 25 years. I had my eyelids tucked and after that I had trouble keeping my contacts on and in my eyes. So now I wear glasses. I have the start of gluecoma and also the start of cateracts. So I have drops and in a couple of years should have my cateracts removed.
Hope things clear for you real soon. It is no fun when you cannot see well. take care

Cherdecor said...

My friend just had cataract surgery and it took her a while, but her vision did clear up. I know yours will also.

Unknown said...

Thanks for all the encouragement, I am hopeful with reservations. But God... Has this undercontrol for sure..