Four-Eyes

The summer of 2006 will go down in my immediate family as the summer of corrective lenses.

Both of my children started wearing glasses full-time; I got VDT glasses; and both my wife and I got contact lenses.

Aside #20/20:What is it about doctors and long, hard to pronounce names? My eye doc is referred to as Dr. B. and my kids' eye doc is Dr. S., both use initials because their names are long and hard to pronounce (by those who can't say words longer than two cylinders). And our pediatrician is Dr. D.

1 of 2 joined the glass eye community in first grade when he was diagnosed with a visual information management problem and sent to Dr. S., who specializes in such things. He got some prism glasses which didn't really have any correction, but which helped his eyes track left and right. We were shocked by the effectiveness of those glasses because his reading really took off with them. Before glasses, 1 of 2 was at risk of not meeting the reading goals for 1st grade. Within a month or two he was reading at the end of 2nd grade level. But those glasses were part time usage -- only for reading and close up work. This spring we went back to Dr. S. for an exam and found out that 1 of 2 needed full-time corrective lenses.

Aside Probability: 1. Of course, those glasses got broken within the week. In hindsight, it was a certainty because they were "unbreakable". The optician demonstrated their flex steel capabilities by twisting them into a pretzel right there in the store! But the give-away was the guarantee, which included a $25 replacement charge should they actually get broken.

So then it was 2 of 2's turn for a visit to Dr. S. Just to make sure. Turns out his vision is worse than 1 of 2's! Glasses are on order.

6/10ths (my better half) went in at the beginning of summer to get some contact lenses to wear while swimming. Like me, she's nearsighted and was concerned that she couldn't see well when we went swimming with the kids. It's hard to keep an eye on them when you can't see them. We both looked into prescription goggles, but decided that they were too expensive and that you'd kind of look funny if you left them on while talking to someone at the pool. So she got some disposable soft contacts and a pair of regular goggles. She's been wearing the contacts other times as well, but dry eyes prevent her from wearing them all the time.

I also got some soft contacts for swimming, but due to some tradeoffs I can't see well enough to drive with them (except in an emergency). But they're great for swimming.

Aside 300#: One drawback of being able to see better at the pool is that I can now see the "manatees" much more clearly. I've always known they were there, and could see their large pinkish forms well enough to avoid collisions, but I was always spared the full force of their — er — beauty. No more.

The problem I have with soft contacts is three-fold: 1) I have significant astigmatism; 2) I wanted disposable lenses; and 3) the lenses I got don't go up to my correction. There are soft contacts available that can correct much of my astigmatism and go up to my power, but they aren't disposables. I don't want to hassle with cleaning, especially since I expect to occasionally go weeks to months between uses. I doubt that soft lenses can be safely stored for months after use and then be used again.

And then there is the issue of presbyopia. I have reached that age when it often becomes necessary to adapt for the shortening of my arms and the shrinking of letters. Yesterday I took delivery of special VDT glasses (VDT = Video Display Terminal). I use a computer all day long in my work and I was having to greatly increase the font size on my computer in order to avoid eye strain. I can already tell a big difference with these glasses and have been able to shrink the font on my computer to something approaching normal. This actually makes many programs much easier to use and makes many web sites possible to use. They're also great for reading.

Unfortunately, my VDT glasses don't work so well for watching TV. I like to work the crossword from the newspaper while watching the news on TV, but I don't yet have any glasses that make it easy to do both at the same time. I can use my regular glasses to watch TV or I can use my VDT glasses to do the crossword. In August I'll be eligible for new lenses in my regular glasses and plan to get bi-focals. Sigh. I guess I'll have to sign up with AARP soon.