Blindness

Some of you have heard me whining the past week about not being able to see. It's been a LONG six days. It all started with an ulcer on my cornea. Went to the eye Dr. He gave me drops and said I could not under any circumstances wear my contacts for at least a week. Gasp!

I got my first pair of glasses at the age of 5. First pair of HARD contacts at age 10. Was declared legally blind, unless wearing the contacts. It was a miracle a decade later when "gas-permeable" hard contacts were invented...they were much more comfortable and could be worn for longer periods of time.

The past 2 years I've been having significant trouble with the contacts, however. Constantly battling protein deposits, fog, other things that make them hard to see out of. But whatev. Andrew has been suggesting for years that I get lasik, but I just could not justify spending the money. There are always 10 other things more important to buy that we really NEED.

After being given the no-contact-sentence last week though, I did some googling and saw that in order to even get a CONSULTATION for lasik, you have to be contact-less for 3-4 weeks. Three months in order to have the actual surgery. I thought "well, I have to go without anyway, so I'm going to make an appointment for a consult."

My appointment is for August 2nd. My eyesight is getting worse every day, due to the lack of hard-contacts reshaping my corneas. In the last 6 days I have:
1 Lost my cart with purse in it at WalMart. I pushed someone else's cart around the store AND PUT STUFF IN IT for 20 minutes before I realized my mistake. There was a tense sprint around the store retracing our steps (Grace was with me) before we found it. Thank goodness we live in happy valley and everything was still in-tact in my purse.
2. Fallen down in the garage tripping over something I could not see with my glasses. All the way down.
3. Just tonight put an entire cart of groceries on the express lane at Smith's. The checker got grouchy with me, and Grace and I frantically bagged our groceries praying that no one in a bad mood would need the express lane before we got done. I explained to him that I couldn't see, but he didn't care. We both left the store in tears.
Not to mention sitting here with my computer inches from my face, not being able to read, watch tv, play the piano, drive, missing the Harry Potter movie (of course I have tickets and am going anyway, but I won't be able to see it), struggling at work to do the most simple things. I wind up in tears every night. I fee like half a person. And it's only been 6 days.

I'm going to my eye Dr. on Saturday again to get (hopefully) a clean bill of eye-health.He'll also upgrade my glasses prescription to match my new, ever-worsening eyesight....but if he gives me the green-light to put the contacts back in, I think I may give up on the lasik. Sigh. We need a new fridge instead anyway.. And a washer-dryer. And....the list is still ever-growing.

However, on the bright side, everyone has gotten quite a few good laughs at my expense, we had a talk on Sunday about spiritual blindness that took on new meaning for me, and  I am super-extra-grateful for my old contacts that were bugging me and getting foggy all the time.