I wasn't looking at the glasses, but at the people talking. I felt the glasses fold under my hands. My first thought was that the temple had simply folded in, but that couldn't be right... I looked down.
My glasses had broken in half, snapped cleanly at the center of the bridge.
Luckily, I really only need my glasses for reading, working on the computer, and driving. I can see just fine for anything else. (I can even read and work on the computer without them, but it gives me a bit of a headache.) I laughed over the strangeness of it, showed the pieces to Matt and Grampa, and didn't worry about it too much. I figured I'd repair them with crazy glue and/or tape when we got back to Gramma and Grampa's house - I'd look like the quintessential nerd, but it would do until I got back to Williamsburg and could make an appointment with an optometrist. (It's been two or three years since my last vision checkup anyway, so it was overdue.)
Grampa went one better: He soldered my glasses back together. It's not very pretty, but it's holding them together pretty well. I still called an optometrist yesterday, and they had room to squeeze me in yesterday afternoon.
The machine that tests peripheral vision was kindof strange. I'd done one of these tests before, so I knew more or less what to expect, but this one talked to me as I punched the little clicker. Click... click... click... "You're doing fine." Click... click... click... click... "You're doing great!" Click... click... click... "Almost done." It said something about every twenty clicks, and I clicked almost a hundred times for each side.
(By the way, the doctor told me I have excellent peripheral vision.)
I'm an extremely low risk for whatever it is they check when they dialate your eyes, so he didn't dialate mine, which was fine with me. I hate those drops they use for that - it stings. He did put in some drops to numb my eyes, for the glaucoma test, and that about killed me. I hate having anything even near my eyes (I have to close my eyes to put my glasses on, and put drops in the corner of my eyes and let them wash over, rather than right into the eye) and the glaucoma test involves touching this little rod thing right to the iris of your eye. It didn't hurt (that's what the numbing drops are for) but he had to try about twelve times before he could get through my wince. I was right on the verge of full panic mode. My last eye doctor had a test that used a puff of air. That was physically less pleasant, but didn't invoke my eye fear. (Nope. No contacts for me.)
In any case, he implied that wearing my glasses all the time instead of just for reading and using the computer had made my vision worse, and told me my current glasses were actually a little too strong for far-sight activities like driving. The astigmatism in my left eye has gotten significantly worse, so he changed my prescription, and sent me out to talk to the people with the frames.
The lady sat me at a table while I was still rubbing the numbness in my eyes, and asked what I wanted. "Well," I told her, "I want something smaller and lighter than what I've currently got, I'm very interested in clip-on sunglasses, and I'm allergic to metals." I thought this would be a tall order.
"Oh, you're going to be easy!" she exclaimed, and went off to collect some frames for me to try.
She came back with about half a dozen titanium frames. I commented on the expense, and she nodded sympathetically, but explained that the clip-on sunglasses only come on wire frames, not plastic ones, and promised that the titanium wouldn't trigger my allergies or break nearly as easily as my current set did.
Well, okay. I'd hated painting fingernail polish on the metal parts of my glasses anyway. I narrowed down the bunch she brought me until I'd picked out the ones I thought looked the best. $309. Before lenses.
In the meantime, the lady behind the counter can't get my insurance company's automated system to recognize my social security number. I had to pay up front for everything, and then file a claim with my insurance company to get back whatever I can. (My insurance does cover glasses - a pair of frames every two years and a pair of lenses every year, up to $200, I think.) All I can say is, the insurance company had bloody well better pay up. They increased my premiums last month.
Word of the Day: leitmotiv - a dominant recurring theme; in music, a recurring phrase associated with a person or idea, esp. in Wagnerian drama.
Well, there you go. Eyes have been the leitmotiv of this journal since I started it, and now I've done an entire entry on my eyes. Hope you've enjoyed the redundancy. (By the way, in case you're wondering, I completely forgot to get any pictures to expand the Other Eyes page while I was on vacation. Every time I remembered it, it was an inconvenient time, and then I forgot again by the time it was convenient. Argh.)
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