Friday, January 28, 2011

I Can See Clearly Now, the Blur Has Gone!

I had absolutely no idea how blurry my vision is in my right eye until I went to the eye doctor today. I set up an appointment two weeks ago because of the massive headaches I've been getting in the afternoons at work. I figured it was due to eye strain because I'm working on the computer all day at work, plus I have bright lights all around the office. So I had an idea, but not full facts.

Fast-forward to today at the eye doctor. First of all, I was referred to this doctor by the husband of one of my co-workers. He told her to tell me that his doctor, Matthew Jones, is liked by all of the ladies because he's kind of Tom Sellick-ish. Okay, cool, except that I'm not a huge Sellick fan. :) Give me an eye doctor that looks like John Travolta and you've got my attention!

First came James, one of the aides in the office. He was hilarious, and we laughed about anything and everything. He must have been buttering me up for what was about to happen: he shot two blasts of air into each eye ball to check the pressure in my eyes. This helps them see if glaucoma is rearing its ugly head. Fortunately, all is well and there's not even a hint of trouble in there. Then I had to watch a little farm house while he measured how far apart my eyes are, how they react to tracking, and other such necessary tests. Pretty cool how they do that.

After James finished up with me I went into Dr. Jones' office so he could do his exam. He gave me a tissue and told me he was going to dialate my pupils with two eye drops in each eyeball, and that when they were in I needed to blink and then dab the inside corner of each eye to get the excess out. He put the drops in, and I instantly squinted hard to get them out! They stung!! So we both busted up laughing when he said, "Or you could just force it all out of there!" :) My eyes dialated without problems and he checked them for many other things.

Overall, he said my eyes are extremely healthy and the only thing he could see was that my corneas (that might be the wrong region...) are not perfectly round, they're sort of shaped like ovals. That can cause a slight stigmatism, which he later concluded, I have.

After all of the lens changes, here is what he found:
My left eye has 20/20 vision.
My right eye has 20/30 vision.
Together, my eyes are 20/20, but with excess strain being put on my left eye in order to compensate for the right.

So I'll be wearing glasses to fix that. I can almost envision a work day without a headache. I would love that!

One of the techs helped me pick out frames suitable for my facial structure, and she was really helpful. Ironically, the first frames I picked out ended up being the ones that looked the best and the ones I ended up choosing. Apparently I know frames for my facial structure better than I thought!

I opted not to order them today, even though they are very nicely priced and high quality, because I wanted to run numbers past George. We are very, very lucky to have insurance through George's employer, so that softens the blow of the cost substantially! That's one thing I will never take for granted: insurance. Anyway, he suggested I go to Costco to see what kind of pricing they have there and compare. Sure, why not. Except that I'm already in love with the ones I picked out, and I'm not totally into shopping for stuff like this. But I guess it'll be a good thing to make some comparisons.

So I'll be wearing glasses at work and while driving. It was suggested by the doctor that I try them while driving at night to see if I notice a difference in the glare off of headlights. I'm wondering how much I've missed with my vision being off just a tiny bit....

Here are the frames I picked out today. The ones shown are blue, but I chose a cranberry/burgundy frame with black tones too. Even though I really like them they may not be the ones I get. We'll see what Costco has.

2 comments:

Crystyne said...

Man I don't know how you handled having the air blown into your eyes. Every time they try to do that to me I close my eyes. Then they have to have another aid come in and hold my eye lids open. Can't wait to see the new glasses!

EternaLeppert said...

It definitely was NOT my favorite part of the tests. LOL But at least it showed there's no evidence of any damage or pending glaucoma in my eyes. : ) I did notice, however, that after the first puff of air I was anticipating and trying to flinch every other time.