You are about to read an epic adventure. A fascinating story spanning hundreds of years (ok fine, a month) full of action, intrigue, romance, espionage and comedy. Maybe not romance. But a lot of intrigue. I think. Nonetheless, it is one woman's journey through life fighting blindness...and where she is today. And trust me, you'll be bored out of your mind. But my flight is delayed so I've got some time to kill.

It all started a little more than a month ago, when my doctor told me that my retina was detached from my eye and instructed me to get surgery on it ASAP. Everything happened pretty fast, as you may remember from last months posts. I was scheduled for surgery the day after they discovered the detachment.

I was all for getting the surgery. Vision is one of my 5 favorite senses. But then I was told of what the recovery would be like - months of double vision, blurriness in the left eye, bleeding, oozing, eye drops, and no contacts for 3 months. Oh, wait ONE moment - no CONTACTS for 3 months? Are you kidding me? Bloody tears I can handle. Double vision, blurriness, yeah, that's fine, but are you saying that I have to go out in public in MY GLASSES?!?!?! NO!!!!!!! *she screams to the sky as the camera pans away*

I hate my glasses. If any of you knew me before 1990, you would know why. I've been wearing glasses since I was in second grade, and my eyes have been gradually getting worse. In fourth grade, the ophthalmologist decided to give me hard contact lenses to prevent my eye from elongating any more. I was, of course, an irresponsible 10 year old and was back on glasses after a year or so. I was pretty much blind without them.

Of course, I tried to get cool glasses. But considering that back then I had as much fashion sense as I have now, they were pretty tacky. The frames were half as big as my face, and I thought it would be COOL to get them tinted purple and pink. Not the frames, mind you. The lenses. And since the glasses were so big and heavy, and there is no bridge on my nose, those things fell down all the time. My nostrils, after a while, got squooshed and misshapen since my glasses were crushing down on them all the time. I was forever pushing them up with my index finger, so much so that when I finally got contacts when I was 16 I was still pushing up my phantom glasses that weren't there for a year or so.

I've mentioned this before, but I was the biggest nerd in grade school and high school. (and I can hear some of you saying "Um, you're a nerd now!" Shut up!) Horrible skin, bad posture, honor classes, huge glasses, bad social skills, all I needed to complete the set was a pocket protector and braces (which came later). But once I got my contacts, a kind of transformation happened. I don't know if it was the contacts or if it was because my skin cleared up or that I learned that smiling with my teeth wasn't a bad thing. But something changed when I was 16. I became......almost cool. Yeah. Almost. Boys started noticing me. I had a social life. I became more outgoing.

And truthfully, I attributed it to getting contacts.

After that, the glasses were kept hidden, only to come out late at night when I would take out my contacts.

The trick worked pretty well for a while.

Then I went to college, where, inevitably people found out my secret. Late night studying/partying sessions at my apartment would make my eyes tired and I'd switch to Clark Kent mode. And of course, some people laughed. But hey, my glasses WERE funny. One good joke was that instead of bottle caps, I had milk gallons (complete with holding a gallon of milk next to their eyes.) It was all in good fun, but it didn't matter, the next morning the contacts were back on.

Truthfully, I can't really remember the last time I went out in public with my glasses on (before surgery). I haven't gotten new glasses since 1997 or so. Yes. 7 years. I'm bad. Bad Christine! Bad! So when I was told that I wouldn't be able to wear contacts for 2-3 months, I kinda panicked. I didn't want to go out in public with my glasses, especially the old wire ones that I had. I look like a dork. They don't fit right. And yes, I'm vain. And there were so many things coming up in the weeks after the surgery - the comic convention, trips for work, parties, etc. I didn't want to revert back to that nerdy girl that I was in high school.

So after I started work after my surgery, I went to go and get new glasses (I was holed up in the house while I recovered, so I didn't give a rats ass who saw me then with my nerdy glasses). If I've got to wear glasses, at least I'll get a pair that looks good and that has been manufactured since the beginning of the millennium. So I went to my local Pearl vision, brought my optometrist's prescription, and had Fatima pick out a pair of glasses for me, since I couldn't see. That, and I leave all major wardrobe decisions to my sisters. They said it would be done within the week - only one week for me to wear super-dork glasses.

Two days later, I was antsy, and called. They said they were just about to call me and tell me my glasses were finished! I ran over to the store (it's a couple buildings away from where I work) and got my new glasses. I put them on and the optometrist passing by said they looked great on me. Truthfully, when I put them on, I got this weird feeling like something wasn't right. Everything looked ok, but something was out of place - something was wrong. Usually when you get new glasses, you get this moment of clarity, thinking to yourself "How did I survive in the world seeing with the bad eyes I had before? The world is so clear and beautiful now!" My thought when I got my glasses was, "Uh...huh?"

I walked out of the store and went back to work, all the while feeling like I was Alice in Wonderland. I could see things, but they seemed distorted, though I couldn't describe how. I sat at my computer and started to work, but somehow my head was starting to hurt and it became hard for me to focus on the screen. I was feeling a little nauseous, too. I switched back to my old glasses, and the world was fine again. Switched to the new ones and it was back through the looking glass. Something was wrong.

Walked back to Pearl and asked them to compare my glasses. They called in the optometrist, who was on the phone outside. He came in, and said, "I'm ready to save some lives, just tell me what I need to do." Which was pretty funny. He compared the glasses, and came back. He was about to tell me what the verdict was when he looked at me and said, "What happened to your eye!?!?" After I told him about the detachment he got really excited and asked me to move my eye around. You know he was this close to dilating the thing and taking a look inside. Anyway, he said that the axis of my new glasses was rotated ninety degrees, which would probably make me a little dizzy and nauseous. There was no way I could wear those glasses. They would have to take them to get redone.

I explained my horrible traveling schedule, and they said they could possible get it by the next week. However, as time went on, they discovered that they needed to get a new prescription from my optometrist, since it was written wrong on the prescription - their little eye doctor secret code of ethics prevents them from overriding someone else's prescription.

Which started a month long battle between me, Pearl and my eye doctor. Everyone was blaming someone else, people had to send my glasses around, people needed an OK to ship the glasses, the glasses had to be shipped to a secret lab in the heart of Antarctica to be cut, blah blah blah.

So yeah. To make a long story short (too late for that. If you made it this far, it's either because this is a really great story or that you have WAY too much time on your hands) I got my new glasses today.

My whole plan about ditching my dorky glasses and getting new ones for my busy month is out the window. The dorky glasses ruled in the month of August.

But yeah, the new glasses look good, I guess, though really different. I'm almost wondering if I prefer the old, dorky glasses. Then again, I dyed my hair burgundy, too, so my hair is a lot darker, too. These new glasses make me look extremely Asian, if there is such a look. You'll have to wait for pictures, though, since I'm out of town and I forgot my USB cable at home. I really didn't have much time to look at myself in the mirror today. Maybe tomorrow.

Went to the eye doctor today for a post op checkup. He said that things are looking great, that the detachment is about 99% healed, though there is still probably some fluid caught in there, which could take several months to clear up. But it's good to know that because I've been seeing flashing lights again, but it's because of the fliud. Whew! Unfortunately, it'll still be about 2 more months til I can wear contacts.

Hmph. Well, we'll see how these cool hip glasses do. Who knows, I might miss the dorky big glasses and bring them back for a comeback tour!

Posted by Yano at September 1, 2004 09:16 PM

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---