After a number of years of neglect, I decided that I should go to the eye doctor.  One of my contacts popped out when I turned my eyes quickly the other day, which as you may remember, is the way you can tell that they need to be replaced.

In addition, it’s getting increasingly more difficult to read things up close, which as you may know means you’re getting old.  Sigh.  But, there are ways to handle that problem, I know.  So, it was worth the trip to the doctor to figure out how to handle it.

My eyesight is 20/100.  I recently discovered that not everyone really knows what that means.  I guess you have to have really bad eyesight to care.  But, in case you’re interested, here’s how to think about it.

Let’s say a friend of mine with 20/20 vision and I were standing in a big field in front of a tall tree.  I’d walk 20 feet away from the tree.  My friend would walk 100 feet away from the tree.  In our respective positions, we’d see the tree with the same clarity.

That explains why I didn’t know trees had tops until I got glasses as a kid.  I thought trees just kinda faded away into the sky. 

Technology has changed since the last time I had an eye exam.  Now, there are machines you look into and the machine figures out what the correction for your eyes should be.  Weird.  And, there’s this other machine that takes a picture of the inside of your eye.  Or, maybe the back wall of it?  Anyway, the doctor shared these photos with me, but oddly enough, I couldn’t make much sense of them.  The news was good, anyway.

Then the part I really hate – the glaucoma test.  I know, you’d think since I put contacts in and out of my eyes every day, I shouldn’t be sensitive about them.  But, I am.   Or, maybe I’m just chicken.  But, taking a white knuckle grip on the base of the machine I actually was able to keep my eyes open long enough to complete the test.  The nurse told me that the machine wouldn’t actually touch my eye, but I didn’t believe her.

So, today I picked up my new contacts.  They’re set up somehow so that I can see near and far at the same time.  Pretty amazing, huh?  Evidently, one eye will do most of the long distance stuff and the other eye will do most of the close up work.  And, you have to put each lense in the correct eye for this magic to work.  They were going to mark the right contact, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.

I spent some time online trying to find a reference that would let me figure out which one should go in which eye based on the prescription, but I failed.  So, I’ll have to call them in the morning to make sure I get it right.

I would have already tested the new lenses out, but I read the writing on the bottles they came in.  The writing informed me that the lenses weren’t sterile and needed to be cleaned before use.  Now, does that make sense?  Are they saying that they make the contacts in a dirty old laboratory somewhere?  How silly.

So, the new lenses are soaking and will be ready for a maiden run in the morning.  Wish me luck!